


We'll Make It I Swear

by kurooos



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Blood and Gore, Happy Ending, Hunk and LAnce are BFFLs, Keith and Lance need to get a clue, Keith and Pidge are the cryptid friends beware, Langst, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mild Gore, Mutual Pining, NO DEATH, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, Sweet Kisses, the nicest smooches yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-08-12 15:50:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7940305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurooos/pseuds/kurooos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the knee down there was nothing but blood and hanging flesh and muscle. He could see a flash of white, bone, that confirmed his horrors while time slipped through Keith’s numb grasp. This had to be a dream. This wasn’t real. His ears were ringing, his vision was tunneling, his senses were filled with Lance, Lance, Lance, oh god Lance.</p><p>or;<br/>Lance loses his leg during a mission and it takes a toll on the team, especially Keith.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vymrn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith didn't know what Lance meant to him. He was irritating at times, couldn't be taken literally, joked around with everything and anything, and flirted like he needed to do so to live. But Lance was also a good friend, a good paladin, a good teammate, a good training partner, and even though Keith never said it out loud a good pilot.  
> But now, looking at Lance in the healing pod in front of him Keith felt blank. He'd only been in the pod for little over two hours and Lance didn't look much better than when he was brought in, already unconscious and carried by Shiro.  
> Both paladins were covered in blood and injuries. Scratches and cuts littering their skin with bright red. In the flurry of Shiro and the rest of the team trying to get Lance out of his paladin suit and into the healing pod, no one mentioned the missing limb.  
> ((ps, this was the original summary for the fic itself but I moved it elsewhere. This is not the summary for the 1st chapter!))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say a HUGE thank you not only to those already following the story and encouraging me, but also to my dormmate (alonelighthouse.tumblr.com). She constantly was subjected to being my beta reader and she gave me amazing feedback. Thank you so much to her!  
> 

It was supposed to be a simple rescue mission, an easy in-and-out mission: shoot some Galra, save a planet, come back to the castle and listen to the team (namely Hunk, Pidge, and Lance) gripe about getting up too early to kick ass, have Allura give them the "we are Voltron speech", be dismissed to go shower, and then crawl right back into bed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what happened.  

The alarms had blared at 3 in the morning, by the castle’s artificial time, and within seconds all the paladins were standing ready and dressed in the dimly lit control room, albeit Hunk yawning and still fixing the cuffs around his wrists while Lance had his eyes closed and weight shifted to one leg. Allura looked pleased anyway, they had gotten better at being quick it seemed and that was all that really mattered.

“We’ve gotten a distress call from a planet a few systems from here. It appears a Galra fleet has shown up and started attacking. It isn’t anything that we need to form Voltron over but it is still a call for help that we can not turn down! Shiro, Keith, Hunk, I want you taking care of the Galra ships. Lance and Pidge I want you tending to the villagers, if there are ground soldiers, and I’m sure there will be, take care of them.”

Coran added from where he was standing by Allura, “It’s a small fleet so there shouldn't be any trouble taking care of this.”

While Allura and Coran were talking, everyone fully waking, Lance already sleepily mumbling about something not being fair, Keith was thinking about the battle ahead of them. More so on the planet that was under siege.

Vymrn was the name he heard in a passing comment in Shiro and Allura’s conversation about it; the planet was one they had passed before. They hadn’t stopped at it completely but had given the civilization a means of communication so that the officials had a way of contacting the Castle of Lions in need of help. It was a barren planet, with what Keith could remember. It was completely unstable but still inhabited. Allura had briefly told them the air was not safe for humans.

The surface of Vymrn was constantly changing. Where Earth had seven major tectonic plates, this planet had 47. Mountain ranges formed and within a week they could be gone and moved. Trenches thousands of feet deep could suddenly open up and swallow mineral stricken lakes. As a result, the people always had to move, never settling in one spot. 

The Vymrnians were orange, squat, six-legged, rock looking things. Four unblinking green eyes swiveled on the top of their head. They almost looked like fat, overgrown spiders with six legs that walked upright. Overgrown spiders that towered at 8 feet. The Vymrnians freaked Keith out just from watching them from a distance and now knowing they were probably going to have to stand by one at least once this mission made him even more anxious.

Keith didn’t think too much on it though as he watched stars zip past them and swirl around in the wormhole before coming to a halt. Didn’t think much on it as he watched Lance stumble into Hunk on their way to their hangars after Allura cheerfully said,

“Alright Paladins, get to your lions!”

* * *

 There were no ships around the planet when they flew near. Not one unnaturally purple piece of glowing metal to be seen in the dark void. It immediately set Keith's nerves on edge, not being able to locate the enemy was very high on his list of things he was not comfortable with. Everyone was silent, at least until Lance opened his mouth, no surprise there.

“I spy, with my little eye, something... missing.”

“Where are the Galra ships?” Pidge asked, ignoring Lance and settling for the thoughts of the other paladins. Lance did not like this at all, his pout could be heard in his voice.

“Is no one going to play along?”

Hunk supplied, “They could already be down on the planet or they weren’t here in the first place.” He too, was ignoring Lance's comment. 

“Oh come on guys.”

Keith toned Lance out, intently focused on the situation at hand as he looked down at the planet the group was now slowly descending to, the mutual understanding that they should investigate thrumming through their bond. He couldn’t spot anything remotely resembling the Galra: debris, a robotic soldier, a ship, a base. Nothing; Just dry ground and a few clusters of yellow-orange trees and fissures in the soil.

“This is a trap.” Lance muttered, tone now serious.

“Lance, we don’t know that.”

“This is so obviously a trap. It has Trap written all over it! Oh look, a sign in neon flashing letters, what does it spell? Give me a T...”

No one replied, leaving Lance to continue his small chant, back to being less serious than the situation called for. Soon the chant turned into actual singing and Keith was ready for Lance to be silent again, or at the very least be productive in talking, like explaining why he thought this was a trap. That might have helped a little.

“Can you save the singing for when you’re back in your own room?”

“Why? Are you jealous of my amazing vocal skills?” He could picture that leering smirk Lance got. Eyes sparkling and an eyebrow raised. It made Keith want to do something to his dumb face.

Like punch it. Yeah.

He grunted out, “I’m not so sure I would use the word amazing.”

“You’re right, you should use perfect.”

Keith felt himself rise to the bait, could feel his blood grow hot and a snide comment on the tip of his tounge ready to put Lance back in his place but Shiro butted in.

“Guys, focus. We need to find out what’s going on and where those Galra are.”

“Allura gave us the coordinates of the current area the Vymrnians are at, we should probably go check on them.”

“Take notes Lance, Pidge knows how to actually contribute to a conversation.”

“You know what Keith?!”

Keith didn’t know what, he could probably guess but there was no confirmation as Shiro, yet again, interupted with a heavy sigh and a stern ‘Lance’, irritation evident. As they flew and Lance grumbled on in the coms, Keith wore a relaxed smile.

* * *

On their way to the village there had been no troubles, no sudden mountains shoving up in front of them, no surprise planet shifts. It was actually pretty boring. Keith found his mind wandering to imagining the day they would have had without this weird mission;

He would have walked into the training room the same time Shiro did, talked about form and fighting techniques until the rest of the paladins came in one by one, Lance being last as usual. Lance would have made some complaint about the morning training and being too harsh with his skin. Keith would have commented under his breath while looking over said skin, smooth and dark and holding a few bruises on his shoulders or arms from rough sparring sessions or group training. Keith would have wondered how beat up Lance really got under his paladin armor and his brain would oh so helpfully add ‘See for yourself. Touch him.’

He would have turned back to Shiro and talked about the day. Same old same old.

But instead, they were flying over a barren mass of dirt looking for an enemy that Keith was sure didn’t exist at the moment.

Once they laid eyes on the mish-mash of tents and dirt homes up ahead though, that changed. They didn’t see any of the Vymrnians walking around or doing tasks. The village looked abandoned, and quickly so.

While looking down at a still burning campfire, Keith noticed a weird noise, one not coming from his lion.

“Do you guys hear that?”

It started off soft, something he thought was just a trick of his ears: a low buzz that turned into a ringing noise, droning lower and lower until he had to strain to hear it. And then, his lion suddenly went dark. Like someone took a switch and flicked it off.

First, the view of the orange, dusty outside turned black and then the projected controls disappeared within a blink, the cabin being plunged into darkness. It made Keith flinch, freeze, and blink widely at the boring grey metal in front of him. What? His hands pulled up on the controls next to him, no longer warm and red but mirroring the rest of the cabin, dark and lifeless.

He tried reaching out to his teammates and got silence in return. The bond with his lion too, had gone unsettlingly quiet. Being used to Red’s constant warm purring around him made it now feel like he was a complete stranger sitting in the dark cabin, like he didn’t belong.

Knowing that the team were sitting ducks out here wasn’t the best thought to have either. Especially on an alien planet being attacked by an unknown enemy, _if there was any enemy_. Keith still hadn't seen anything out there.

He started to wonder how far above the ground they were, they had been ascending and descending at random while flying, Keith never paid much attention to it. Why didn’t he get that falling feeling?

“Hello? Shiro? Allura? Any-”

His lion suddenly lurched, as if something decided he made the perfect football to punt into the endzone. Keith cursed when he was thrown forward onto the smooth grey dash in front of him and then back into his seat.

That seemed to actually kickstart his lion into crackling to life again before Red almost crashed into what looked like trees. He assumed they were trees, he didn’t get a clear look as the dark glass in front of him lit up again to show him outside. He couldn’t tell anymore with his vision swimming and lights blinking around him.

This must be what raves are like he thought miserably. Keith squeezed his eyes shut. Why would anyone subject themselves to this? He felt like he was spinning, moving way too fast and being knocked around like a pinball.

A Lance-like voice in his head went, ‘I almost puked out there, I felt like Hunk!’ To which the Hunk voice grumbled, ‘How do you think I felt, I am Hunk’.

The spinning finally stopped only after a loud series of snaps and cracks sounded outside and he was yet again shoved forward with a bitten off curse. He was getting tired of being slung around, this never happened during battles elsewhere. Half into his seat, and half on the dash he thought weakly, ‘The Lions need seatbelts’.

He sighed heavily, eyes closed, heart racing in his ears. It seemed safe to move now, everything silent and calm. He opened his eyes thinking about the others, were they okay? Did they get attacked too?

“What the hell just happened? Guys?”

He hadn’t heard the other lions getting attacked because he was too busy himself but he had heard them crash distantly, felt the heavy metal shake the ground or maybe he just crashed that hard. Keith tried moving Red from where she was tangled up in the trees, now able to see that, yes, he was swaying right above the ground and, no, he wasn’t playing around in a NASA centrifuge.

The holographic controls finally crackled back in front of him as he leaned back into his chair and the public com line opened up with heavy breaths. The other lions were nearby according to the small dots cluttered on his map and working perfectly fine too, no one had any serious damage.

Well... maybe he had a serious case of whiplash.

“Is everyone okay?”

He got a round of groans and affirmations along with static. _Shiro? Lance?_ He waited, for anything from them. A breath of air, a complaint, something.

Keith worked on getting the controls of his lion back in order, easing himself out of the nest of trees he’d been ensnared in and lowering Red to the ground without tumbling ungracefully. He’d been jostled around enough for probably the next two weeks thank you very much.

“What the fuck was that?!”

 _There’s Lance_. Keith felt oddly relieved, his chest light and the heavy weight in his stomach now gone. But what about Shiro? Keith looked to the small map and saw the black lion not too far from his own, a little more north.

“Shiro?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine. Just crashed into a cliff.”

Shiro made crashing into a cliff sound like he just went out to grab the mail. No biggie. Just crashing into a cliff. The usual. Don’t worry about me, Keith. How very much like Shiro to make a morbid joke out of something potentially life threatening.

“There’s a clearing down below me, meet up there, team.”

“Roger that.”

“On my way.”

“You got it.”

“Uuugnh”

Keith flew up, finally able to see the damage he had done to the plant life. A lion-sized dent in the trees revealed the snapping and cracking, thankfully, wasn't from his lion getting torn up but was from the dry branches and trunks breaking.

Finally laying eyes on the rest of the lions up ahead was relieving to say the least, all of them showing signs of being banged up, scratched, and covered in dirt but nothing was ripped off or sparking. Except the blue lion wasn’t among the group. Keith found his eyes unconsciously searching on the map just to make sure. It showed a blue dot moving slowly towards the cluster of their lions.

While he couldn’t see the blue lion currently he could definitely hear it’s paladin. Lance wouldn't _shut up_. Wouldn't stop complaining about how his hips hurt, how his back was sore, how his head was pounding, and how his chest felt like Hunk was sitting on him. It was here that Hunk had grumbled at him and Keith zoned the two out instead to focus on Allura who showed up on their controls.

“Paladins, is everything alright?”

“We’re okay, Allura. Are you picking up any signatures belonging to the Galra?”

“I’m afraid not, that is why I tried contacting you in the first place but all I got was static. What happened down there?”

“Something ran into us and-”

“I thought it felt more like something was pulling us.”

“Uh, no. You’re both wrong, something definitely grabbed me and chunked me into the ground. Allura, I’m not so sure what everyone else had done to them but I think I need a med-pod when we get back. My spine is a pretzel.”

Keith decided this was the perfect time to cut in. Lance hardly made logical sense but Keith could tell what the blue paladin was trying to say nonetheless. That irritating little voice in his head told him how much he wanted to rub the knots out of Lance’s shoulders and to help crack his back so he’d stop complaining. _No. You want to feel him relax under you, you want him to feel good because of you. You don’t want him to be quiet, you want to hear him laugh, you want to hear him to groan your name and-_  No, no, no, nononono.

Keith opted for teasing.

“You wouldn’t be breathing if your spine was a pretzel, Dumbass.”

“Y’know who else won’t be breathing?”

Keith felt his body grow warm. Happy with himself that he could get a rise out of Lance like this. _Happy that Lance isn’t complaining anymore, he’s focused on you._  It was an art form in his opinion, being able to make Lance get so swamped over by his emotions he couldn’t control his outbursts. It made him feel powerful.

As always, Shiro was the soothing hand, able to calm both Keith and Lance down with barely any effort. It was one of the reasons he admired Shiro. Not to mention how he quickly he could shut Lance up.

“ _Lance._ Control yourself.”

“Why am I the only one who gets scolded. What about Keith?! He started it!”

“Stow it. Both of you. Allura, something attacked us but we couldn’t see what it was, it didn't show up on our radar, and it completely disabled our lions for a moment.”

“Whatever it is, it does not appear to not be attacking anymore. Coran is already trying to figure out what happened. I want you to go to the village and make sure the Vymrnians are okay and then return immediately. Even if whatever it is out there isn’t attacking now doesn’t mean it isn’t out there waiting.”

Shiro gave the affirmative and pulled his lion up from the ground, the others following the lead. The blue lion flew in behind Shiro right as they took off towards the village again, completing their loose formation. Keith frowned at the fact that the blue lion was more dented up than the rest of them.

* * *

The village was not as they had left it. Where before it had been abandoned, it was now bustling with both Vymrnians and Galra sentries. The huts and tents were ablaze, bright orange flames engulfing everything. Keith was momentarily reminded of when the Arusian’s village had been attacked. He could see the sentries were not fake this time, moving around with hulking grey guns aimed at their prisoners.

Galra ships loomed high in the air as if they had been sitting there for a while. How had they not noticed them before? Where did they come from?

It was a bad thought to have, but Keith felt relieved. Allura’s orders now had purpose and they weren’t out here wandering around not knowing what was happening. They had a job to do now, a task that wasn’t difficult to perform. His hands pulled up on the controls in his lion, taking his place near the black and yellow lions above while the green lion moved down by the blue lion as it started to sink towards the ground.

“Be careful, everyone.”

“Careful is my middle name, Shiro,” Lance piped up.

“I thought it was ‘Reckless Idiot’ I must have missed the memo.”

“Pidge is there a way to completely turn off the Red lion’s communication. I feel like that would benefit the team more than we realize.”

Pidge was about to answer, a witty snapback Keith hoped, but yelled for them to move. The lions darted away from each other as a Galra ship finally took notice of them and fired. The paladins knew what to do, it was second nature at this point. Get instructions from Allura, Shiro takes over, go to the planet in need of help, rescue the people from the Galra, go home, celebrate. Rinse and repeat.

“This conversation isn’t over!” Lance cursing was all Keith heard before he shot off towards the offending ship with Hunk and Shiro.

* * *

What had Coran meant when he said it was a small fleet? Keith had thought maybe six or seven ships at the maximum, not thirty-two. It wasn’t difficult leading them out of the atmosphere and into the easier to maneuver space. It was even easier destroying them. But still, the numbers were surprising for such a small planet; a planet that looked to have no value except if you valued dirt, maybe.

Their lions were strong, and they had trained so intimately with them for weeks on end so their bonds had doubled in strength. Keith felt the pride thrum through his lion’s bond as he melted through one of the Galra ships. The three lions weaved around purple blasts of energy, dragged their lion’s claws and blades into the hulls of the ships before kicking off to another ship. The blasts of explosions all around them were as insignificant as wind while they attacked and defended each other.

Keith got hit every now and then, shots glancing off his lion as he got distracted in destroying what was in front of him. He was glad he had Shiro and Hunk to watch his back. They were formidable and hard to shake when in focus. Shiro being the most experienced and the leader where Hunk was big and easily brought the Galra's attention as he bodily slammed into ships, knocking them together or taking shots fired at him like they were nothing.

Keith had barely noticed that the intact ships were dwindling in number. How much time had passed? How long had they been up here? He chanced a look at the planet below, noticed the fires still blazing, they seemed larger from way out here. It sent worry to his chest, thinking about Pidge and Lance who were undoubtedly out of their lions now, only fighting with bayards and particle shields. It was expected with sentries taking prisoners, they couldn't just fly in on their lions and shoot blasts at crowds.

He didn’t have time to be distracted about the others. He didn’t need to be, he told himself. They were paladins, they knew how to fight, they knew how to take care of the Galra. Keith swiveled around and kicked off a Galra ship to head to the next one, shaking away the distracting thoughts.

This wasn’t like him. He never got side-tracked when fighting. And worse, the distracting thoughts were more frequent these past few weeks, nagging worry that crept up whenever they fought, as Voltron or not. He must be getting sick. And Lance didn’t help, always challenging him. It was good in some ways he guessed. He had started using Lance as a crutch. A place he could ground himself to if he got out of place.

Lance made Keith want to be better, made him want to get stronger. It was good, he kept telling himself. It was good to have that kind of motivation. It was healthy.

Meeting Lance in the training room when they had nothing to do around the castle some days was good. Telling Lance how to move his feet, how to hold his body, how to punch and block, putting his hands on Lance's chest and easing him where he wanted him to stand, feeling Lance’s body heat through his thin training suit. It was all to help Lance improve so Keith could improve too. It was _good_.

Lance wasn’t slow though, Keith hardly had to tell him how to do something twice. As dumb as Keith always told him he was, Lance learned fast. Distressingly so.

Their last free training session Keith had a hard time keeping up with Lance hand to hand. Keith didn't step back quick enough to avoid Lance kicking his legs out from under him and he had ending up flat on his back with Lance grinning above him, panting hard, and sweat running down the side of his face, down his neck. Keith remembered how much his jaw hurt from where Lance got a good hit in, could remember his mouth going dry when he watched Lance swallow and sit back on his haunches and blabber on and on about how he finally won. His chest had grown tight upon seeing the light in Lance’s blue eyes and it made Keith snap. To do what though...

The noise Lance made when Keith had suddenly flipped them over and slammed Lance back into the floor went straight to his gut, hot and heavy. Keith's heart hammered in his chest, excited, as he pushed slender brown wrists into the ground and Lance’s face lit up red. They didn't move, Lance looking shocked and flustered and something else Keith couldn't quite name.

Hunk had walked in on them like that, something about dinner being ready, Keith didn’t remember because he had shot off Lance so fast he made himself dizzy. Lance had croaked out they would be there in a bit after showering up. Keith had stood, helped Lance up from the floor with a strained ‘good job today’, before he let go of Lance’s hand and raced out of the room. That had been a week before this mission, they hadn’t trained since and Keith thought how stupid he was.

“Keith!”  

His focus snapped back when Shiro yelled at him, barely launching himself out of the way of an ion cannon. _Fuck, focus you idiot_. He grit his teeth, turning around and returning a blast of fire at the Galra ship.

“Sorry. I wasn’t-” he tried, feeling flustered at being called out. He didn't get far with Pidge interrupting him.

“--llo?! Allu-- is----ble--can’t--”

Keith glanced to the side, at the com line to see static-y little lines. He blasted a Galra ship out of the way as he listened in. He hadn’t heard Pidge sound so distressed before, even with crackling marring the majority of their words.

“Pidge? What’s wrong?” Shiro darted in front of Keith, his lion’s blade in it’s mouth cutting into a Galra ship with a loud noise. Keith fired off a laser at another Galra straggler ship that looked to be trying to escape. He promised he would stay focused but suddenly seeing the blue lion race past them and all the ships threw Keith for a loop, momentarily forgetting Pidge's worry.

“Lance, what the hell are you doing?! Where are you going?”

He couldn’t help but look down, Lance just left Pidge alone on the ground. What was he thinking?

The fire below was out, replaced by a gash in the planet, a trench still opening and splitting the ground. A pit similarly opened in Keith’s stomach. _Where were the Vymrnians? Were they safe? They didn’t fall in did they? Lance and Pidge wouldn’t let that happen_.

“It’s Lance, he was- I tried to-”

Pidge sounded winded, worse even. Like they were doing their best not to hyperventilate while helping the other three lions take out the remaining Galra ships. Keith mind was spinning around and around trying to understand what was happening while staying focused on the fight. He heard Pidge take a deep breath and then sigh out again; the panic still edged in their voice.

“I don’t know if Lance is okay. The blue lion just suddenly flew off. We got separated. We got all the Vymrnians out, they’re okay but. The ground started to shake really bad and-”

Hunk finally spoke up, cutting off Pidge's rambling, “It’s okay, if everything is taken care of down there let’s go back to the castle. I’m sure Lance was just too eager to get back to bed.”

The joking tone made the heavy mood seem a little better. Keith could breathe easier without being pressured to fight and also worry about the safety of the civilization below. But all that stress being gone left a heavy weight in his chest, a bad feeling. Maybe it was the blue lion not being clustered with them or maybe it was the missing nonchalant comments about how easy the fight was.

The feeling followed Keith all the way back to the castle regardless; if anything, it grew worse hearing Shiro call Lance’s name on the com to try and get a response. The silence that followed was deafening, none of the other Paladins able to say anything.

Keith could only hope that Lance was alright. He could only hope that when they got back Allura was chewing him out for leaving the team and he was safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'll see you next chapter. ♪~ ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ  
> Check me out on tumblr: shipperbitch.tumblr.com  
> *Chapter Edited 02/02/17*


	2. Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Falling into ruin was a bit like falling in love: Both descents stripped you bare and left you as you were at your core. And both endings are equally painful.”
> 
> ― J.R. Ward, Lover Unbound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning!! Gore. Lots of gore in this chapter. And angst. The good shit. Y'all know why you're here ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

The only words spoken when they got in line of sight of the castle were from Shiro, who simply said, "Go to the infirmary to get patched up."

Naturally, that was what Keith planned on doing, he knew how to listen to orders. Keyword: planned. Past tense. After landing Red in the hangar he told himself everything was going to be like normal. He would pat Red on the leg as he left, went to wherever Shiro said for them to meet up, get debriefed, and sit back and watch Lance get scolded.

He knew something was wrong the moment he got out of his lion though. It was such a different feeling that he stood in the hangar for a second, just listening to Red rumble softly behind him.

It was quiet, as usual for morning missions, but the castle seemed to also be darker; The crystals on the walls shone with pride, light reflected onto every surface in the hangar. The power of the Balmeran crystal hummed strong, so that wasn't it. The light in the hangar felt dense, like a physical weight was crowding in on him, crawling inside of him and enveloping his lungs and stomach, making the colors in the room hazy.

Keith pulled off his helmet off, sighing heavily with the release of warm air that had been trapped against him. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and brushed his hair back. He would much rather take all of his paladin armor off now but Shiro had given clear instructions. What was a little sweat and heat? Water under the bridge, warm sticky water. Gross.

Keith started walking from Red's hangar with buzzing nerves after remembering Lance, who had no responses to Allura or any of the paladins trying to contact him earlier. It had been an awkward and uncomfortable ride back through space. The silence left by the absence of jokes and promises of sleep and food was glaring.

Something was wrong, they knew Lance was injured but they hadn't known to what extent. Pidge said she had lost sight of him after he ran after a cluster of Galra droids and apparently that had been before the ground started to split. Even so, Pidge had been worried about leaving the planet without Lance next to her.

With his mind busy on the mission from before Keith took a left instead of a right and started to walk towards the blue lion's hangar instead of the infirmary, his shadow bounding around the hallway in the light as he walked quickly. His footfalls echoed softly, the noise pattering ahead of him and behind him. Oh well, Shiro could get two people to scold now he supposed.

He felt a wide variety of emotions, irritation, anger, worry. And possibly some in between. The blue lion streaking across the battlefield replayed over in his head, the dented and scratched metal accentuating the severity of the rush Blue was in.

The last words Keith had heard from Lance were 'This conversation isn't over' and oh, how Keith hoped it wasn't. The conversation might take on a new subject in light of Keith's worry, but it would surely be a conversation Lance would remember. Keith would be sure of it. It made Keith remember the bickering he and Lance threw back and forth during training, especially during group sessions.

With all his reminiscing he barely missed the blue lion's hangar. He slowed down now, curious as to why the doors were still wide open.

Upon walking in Keith looked across the large room, nothing out of place except the blue lion, lying down rather than sitting up proudly. Blue looked about as sad as any giant sentient metal lion could. It was weird.

It was weirder seeing blood. For a moment Keith didn't even recognize it with how much there was. But it was unquestionably everywhere. Dark and hideous and smeared along the white metal of Blue's mouth, on the ends of her claws, and underside of her chin. The most was pooled in front of Blue though, looking as if someone thought it was a good idea to rip open a blood bag and let it spill out there.

The way the bloodied hangar looked reminded Keith of those silly plays or cartoons where the amount of blood couldn't possibly match up with how much a human could bleed out realistically. It made Keith's heart leap into his throat and his stomach drop to his feet while he approached.

Where was Lance? That couldn't be Lance's blood right? There was SO much of it and, as Keith drew near, he could smell the heavy metal of the blood taking over the room. He looked around quickly, noticing the puddle of blood smeared to one side before turning into a line of splotches and bloody bootprints, leading out of the hangar and into the darkened castle hallway.

Without realizing it his feet started to move and Keith followed the blood out, walking briskly in hopes that if Lance was the one injured he could get to him in time and help with whatever severe injury he had. _Maybe he got shot in the shoulder? His arm had to have been injured. What if it was a head injury? No it couldn't be there was too much_ \- Keith's lungs hurt as he picked up the pace and his mind filled with nothing but ' _be okay_ '.

He was so distraught, and in a rush, he almost barreled right into Allura, who was looking flushed and wide eyed in her battle armor. She had come out from the opposite hall, looking almost as in a panic as Keith had.

"THERE you are." Was all the princess said before grabbing his hand and yanking him along with her. _The wrong way_ , he thought,  _the blood didn't trail this way_. Keith helplessly watched the blood disappear over his shoulder as they rounded a corner. His attention snapped back in front of him, onto Allura walking him forward with a gentle but firm hand around his own. He suddenly felt anger. His fingers gripped his helmet tightly. Why were they going _this_ way?

"Allura. Lance, the blood it-"

Allura cut him off firmly, "Shiro is taking care of it." And said nothing else. It shut Keith up rather easily. Allura sounded completely serious, no tone of assurance to be heard.

With his mouth no longer moving his brain took the information and ran with it. Questions and ideas and thoughts and worries filled him till he was sure words would fall out of his ears and eyes.

 _Where are they? What's wrong? Is Lance okay? Is Shiro okay? Why aren't they with us? Who's blood was that? What do you mean Shiro is taking care of it? Where are they? Lance could have been shot in the arm Allura. There’s a main artery in the neck and the armpit that he could bleed out of. Humans can lose only a fifth of their blood supply before going into shock. There was a lot of blood. Was that Lance’s blood?_ _Why haven’t I heard from Shiro?_

Allura pulled him into the castle infirmary. He decided he could save his questions for later, pushing his nagging worry to the back of his mind. It was normal for the infirmary wing to make Keith feel a little at peace, despite all the injuries brought into it. The room wasn't small and suffocating like hospitals back on Earth, especially not like the one in the Garrison. The large, round area held a tranquil atmosphere despite being a little on the chilly side.

He watched Allura leave the room once she fixed him with a firm stare. He got the message, _stay here_. His panic had gotten to manageable levels now, but he still wanted answers. He wanted to see Shiro and Lance. The rest of the paladins.

Upon scanning the room Keith noticed Hunk and Pidge, sitting together near an open healing pod and chatting quietly with their paladin armor in various states of disassembly. Hunk made eye contact with Keith and waved him over.

Not being one to pass up an opportunity to get information and check up on his teammates, Keith walked over with his helmet perched between his arm and his waist.

"How are you two doing?" he asked, not able to bring up Shiro and Lance. It felt rude to do so. Keith didn’t pick favorites but of course Shiro was someone closer to Keith than the rest of them. And Lance too, somehow, had worked his way into Keith’s life.

"Pretty good. You look like you've been put through a rock tumbler though."

Keith couldn't help but laugh a little, softly. His worry suddenly pushed to the side in favor of Hunk being, well, Hunk. He responded cooly with a simple, "I've gone through worse." which seemed to be funny to Pidge who snorted on her own laugh.

It was now that Keith could finally check on himself, mentally. He could feel that his ribs ached when he inhaled, his head was starting to pound and his right wrist felt like he had punched a solid wall without holding his hand right. He was sure he had a couple of scrapes and bruises, just as Hunk and Pidge did, but at least he wasn't sporting the soot in his hair like Pidge was. She seemed busy shaking the powdery soot out, the black fabric on her hands from the paladin suits growing chalky white.

He was so caught up in the two paladins in front of him, he missed the two coming in behind him. Allura’s random yell in something completely not English made his head turn. It grabbed the attention of the other’s as well. Pidge and Hunk looked up towards the door, to a point behind him. How could things happen so fast? Why wasn’t he being attentive? The sight Keith was faced with was nothing but fuel for nightmares and bouts of anxiety.

Shiro was completely covered in scratches and blood. If Keith had to really describe it he might have thought of Shiro as a canvas for a calmer Jackson Pollock, that is if the artist ever used blood for his works. It was a mix of his own blood and not, dried and fresh. Keith didn’t know if that worried him or made him feel relieved that Shiro’s injuries were just as minor as the rest of the group’s. Except for the boy in his arms, of course.

Seeing Lance so pale was wrong. Keith could only stare in horror as Lance’s skin seemed to be doing it’s best imitation of the white areas of their Paladin armor. That of which Lance was being cleared of. He wasn’t conscious and thus when Allura pulled his chest plate off he slumped right back down onto the table.

The table? When had that appeared? Where had it come from? All Keith could do was stare, stare at Lance looking small and close to death. Look at the mangled dripping mess of Lance’s right knee.

Blood was dribbling steadily onto the floor, and now that Lance was moved, onto the metal table. Coran and Allura were talking in rapid Altean nearby, Shiro responding to them in English like he understood, Hunk and Pidge were eerily silent. Keith’s throat _hurt_ as if there was an ever growing lump trying to bust out or claw it’s way up his throat.

Lance’s right leg was gone. Completely. There was no dangling injured leg. From the knee down there was nothing but blood and hanging flesh and muscle. He could see a flash of white, bone, that confirmed his horrors while time slipped through Keith’s numb grasp. This had to be a dream. This wasn’t real. His ears were ringing, his vision was tunneling, his senses were filled with Lance, Lance, Lance, _oh god Lance_.

The world around him snapped back so hard he couldn’t breathe when Shiro said his name sternly, an edge of panic in it that he’d heard only once in his life. He looked up to Shiro, scared. He inhaled to steady himself and immediately wished he hadn't. The fetor of blood made his stomach rouse and his fingers tingle. He was distantly aware that he had been holding his breath. It didn’t seem to matter now as he moved forward with trembling fingers.

From there time seemed to blur and collapse into itself against Keith’s will, or rather his consciousness seemed to be fading in and out. He only remembered bits and pieces: his hands now coated in Lance’s blood, the words ‘amputate’ ‘dying’ and ‘defibrillator’, the noises of armor tossed to the ground and fabric being ripped sounding deafening, someone breathing heavy, the ground swirling.

Colors passed suddenly, lights flickered hazily, and shapes danced as mischievous smudges around him. Keith couldn’t breathe in enough. He felt weak and helpless. It was so detrimentally crippling he needed to- he _had_ to-

"Breathe. Keith. Breathe."

Keith inhaled hard and wheezed out at the calming voice. Blood smeared on the white porcelain under his fingers and water washed away bile in front of him. His hands were still shaking against the lip of the sink.

He was in the bathroom. _When did I get here?_

He looked up weakly, muscles screaming and begging for some sort of relaxation. He saw Shiro behind him looking panicked but much better than the batshit crazy ride Keith was currently strapped into. The bathroom grew dark and lighter, like a lightbulb was buzzing in and out, using it’s last bit of strength to hold on right before it popped and fizzled out. Keith felt that maybe he was that light bulb, his blood growing hotter and hotter under his skin until he felt like he wouldn't be able to hold everything in and he would burst.

He tried to make sense of what happened, of where he just came from, of what he had been doing. There was a gap in his memory, it seemed. That was something that disturbed him. It was a brutal tug of war as he remembered Lance. He needed to remember, to figure out what he did but he didn’t want to remember seeing Lance like that. He didn’t want to remember.

 _It wasn’t bad_ , he tried telling himself. _You’re overreacting. Lance will be okay. He’s okay. You’re okay._

As he drew in a breath, listened to himself sob and watch the sink under him blur from tears, he decided that he wasn’t going to be okay.

* * *

 

While Keith sat on his bed, Shiro got him water and a towel. They had walked from the bathroom after Keith stopped crying. Keith didn’t remember stopping but he did remember Shiro’s warm hand on his shoulder, guiding him around and into his chest. Keith remembered clutching onto Shiro like the universe was trying to rip him into pieces.

Shiro nudged him softly, holding out the open water pouch to Keith. He blinked numbly at it, fingers closing around it. He took the water to his lips and sipped.

His throat had been so dry the water felt amazing. Revitalizing. He felt guilty about that, about sitting in his room and having a little session with Shiro while the rest of the castle was most likely dealing with…

The pressure behind his eyes and on his chest came back and he swallowed another mouthful of cold water. Shiro sat down next to him softly, the sheets wrinkling under his legs. How interesting, Keith thought, the fabric moves so suddenly with even the slightest change.

“Keith.”

He looked up, looked at Shiro again. He had zoned out without realizing it. Had they been sitting here long?

“Are you okay now?”

The question felt strained from Shiro, like he didn’t really want to ask but felt there was a lack of anything else to say. Keith shook his head no, softly. He had to be honest here. He felt like he was watching their interaction from far far away. His body still hurt, both from the fight on Vymrn and from the….whatever happened to him. Shock. That’s what he was going with.

“I’m sorry.” were the words tumbling from his mouth when he opened up. It wasn’t what he was going to start with but oh well he guessed.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You’re safe in here.”

Keith wanted to say, _of course I am. Anywhere in this castle is safe. We’re in space._ He stopped though, realizing that those words from Shiro made his thudding heart settle. He was safe here. He was safe with Shiro. Shiro who was in nothing but the black body suit that went under their paladin armor and a spot of red in his hair. Oh.

Shiro was void of any blood. His scratches and wounds seemed to be healed as well. His eyes were calm but distant. Keith frowned.

“Lance-”

“Is safe. Alive.”

He nodded. Thank God. Thank gods. Whatever was out there, whatever was watching them or whatever the hell else. Keith felt relieved. He took another sip of water. His throat was dry again.

The room fell into silence and Keith was fine with it. It wasn’t uncomfortable and really, it helped him relax and finally understand he was exhausted. Maybe exhausted was too light of a term. His eyelids felt so heavy he was afraid when he blinked next he wouldn’t open them again. All of his energy was sapped. His muscles ached and sat uselessly like jello. Still, Keith wanted answers.

He asked in a small voice, “What happened?” almost afraid of the answer. Almost. If Lance had to suffer through whatever he had to suffer through the least Keith could do was listen. Could imagine.

There was a pause from Shiro, no reply for a long while. And suddenly, “We don’t know. There isn’t any video feed on Lance’s helmet. Not that Pidge could find.”

“None at all?”

Shiro shook his head.

Almost too slowly Keith realized they had been working on Lance’s helmet. The team had time to take Lance’s helmet and sift through it. They had time to plug it up to, probably, one of Pidge’s computers and search into the video logs.

“How...How long have I been in here?” He asked, worried about the answer. He couldn’t have been in his room for more than thirty minutes max. He and Shiro were just in the bathroom a moment ago.

“Four hours.”

Keith’s vision doubled quickly in disbelief. _What?_ “What?”

“You had an intense panic attack. I wasn’t going to move you from your room for a...while.”

“I could have been helping-”

“Not in your state. Especially not now. You need to rest.” Shiro cut him off, “Maybe in the morning you can see Lance. I just want to make sure you’re well rested.”

Shiro placed a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder and all of the fight seeped out of him. All of his anxiety and fear was forcefully shoved down. His eyes shut and he steadied his jaw. He wanted to protest, he wanted to get up out of bed and go back to the infirmary. He needed to at least see Lance, to read the medical statistics on the surface of the healing pod and watch the heart monitor move steady.

Instead, Shiro guided him back onto the bed and softly took the water from his loosening grasp. The bed under Keith’s back seemed to drag him down like a magnet, taking first his physical ability to move and next his consciousness.

* * *

_The Castle of Lions had movie nights sometimes._

_Keith didn’t understand how they got the movies in the first place or how Pidge had managed to get wifi signal all the way out here in the middle of space billions of miles away from Earth._

_Either way, Lance and Hunk decided the castle would have movie nights every month. There was a poll to decide what movie to watch but that generally was only voted on between Shiro, Hunk, Lance, and Pidge. Lance’s explanation was that Keith didn’t watch enough movies to know and Keith’s rebuttal was that movies were a waste of time._

_Keith still showed up to the living room at the designated time, at the specified day. He still took part in the tradition to only wear pajamas and bring your own blanket. It was kind of fun, it was a homey feel Keith got used to even though he never grew up doing such things. It was also nice to simply relax tiredly with the rest of the paladins and Allura and Coran._

_He was sitting cross legged on the floor now in front of the sunken couches with a blanket covering him up and a bowl of not-quite-popcorn-but-popcorn by his side._

_Lance sat on the couch behind him, one of his slender legs slung over Keith’s right shoulder. Lance’s equally slender fingers were buried in Keith’s hair, braiding and twisting it gently while he blabbered on and on about the movie the team was watching. Every now and then one of Lance’s hands moved away so he could gesture animatedly, but it always returned to Keith’s head. Keith had protested furiously when Lance started to touch him but fell to the whining rather quickly._

_Lance was actually helping Allura and Coran understand what was happening amongst hurried explanations from the others but all Keith heard was nonsense. Weren't movies supposed to have quiet audiences?_

_Keith rested his head back onto Lance’s folded leg on the couch, his fingers coming up under the blanket to touch Lance’s ankle, warm and soft. His thumb pressed against the smooth skin, enjoying the shared warmth between them._

_Lance kept on talking over Pidge who was now interjecting, loudly, and Keith couldn’t understand them. He really didn’t care though, the feeling was one he wanted to stay in for a long time._

_He was guilty of falling asleep at more than one during these movie nights. Simply because of being surrounded by his friends, his now family, and being safe and warm. It wasn’t his fault._

_His eyes stayed focused on the screen ahead of him and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t find a place to open his mouth and add on to the conversation. He was pretty captivated with the movie, he guessed. Then again it wasn’t troublesome that he wasn’t actually talking because he was still included._

_That was one of the reasons he fell asleep easy. There was background noise, he was warm and quiet, there was no threat to his life or the lives of his friends around him. It was the best times to doze off in his opinion._

_Coran suddenly gasped at the screen, some character dying in a plot twist of events. Keith couldn’t remember what movie they were watching, he hadn’t seen it before? Maybe? Or had he watched it? He suddenly felt like he had just got here. The room was starting to feel weird, like he just started existing in it. He actually couldn’t remember changing into his pajamas and walking here._

_Lance’s fingers in his hair grabbed suddenly and he yelped. Keith wasn’t tender headed so it didn’t hurt but it was unexpected. What the fuck was Lance doing? He looked back, ready to growl some complaint at Lance but he paused when he saw him._

_Lance’s face was twisted into pain, brows furrowed together and eyes shut tightly. He whimpered, tears starting to run down his brown cheeks, and Keith’s fingers sought Lance’s ankle in worry._

_Keith no longer felt skin under his thumb, there was no warmth in his palm. He couldn’t feel Lance’s leg on his shoulder anymore. His hand was now empty whereas before he was holding onto Lance. Had Lance moved? He should have noticed._

_He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong but Allura shouted something at him, causing his head to turn. Allura never spoke in Altean around them why now?_

_The metal table in front of Keith glinted at him, blood dripping down to the ground. It was sticky and slow, taking it’s time to drip off and make a mess of the smooth floor. Keith’s fingers shook, red now layering his black paladin suit. Keith’s mouth felt glued shut as he saw Hunk hold down Lance’s shoulders. The body under their hands now seizing. He had to act quickly, why was he just standing here, staring at Lance’s knee._

_The injury was gruesome and horrid. Flesh dying as blood stopped supplying it. Muscle was uselessly hanging with the sinews and tendons and blood vessels.  The hole left was gaping and all one stressing shade of red._

_Dirt and cracks covered the white and blue armor on Lance’s thigh like some giant hand had reached out and crushed. The black fabric of the suit was tangled with blood and gore._

_Keith decided he hated the color red. It was a disgusting color. It wasn’t a color for Lance._

_Muted browns of Lance’s skin and any shade of blues were what Keith thought of when he thought of Lance. He thought of the happy hugs they shared after particularly tough missions, smelling the faint trace of salt, the ocean and floral lotion. Lance was always warm like the mid-day’s sun was steadily beating in Lance’s chest, pumping around in his veins and being the source of his brilliant smile. He didn’t belong on the cold, hard, unforgiving table in front of them. Not him. Not like this._

_Something sticky and burning touched Keith’s ankle and he jolted, head whipping down to see something purple and gooey slosh over his feet, up his ankles. It was crawling, growling and moving up his body._

_It singed the paladin armor and suit off his body, burned into his skin, stung every nerve it touched. Guilt. Terror. Anguish. It felt like it was shot into every cell. He screamed, trying to step back away from the table. Away from the mass that was sure to consume him._

_He ended up tripping over something small but firm. He was too scared of the purple sludge crawling up over his hips now, consuming his lower body. He looked to the side, hoping whatever he fell over could be of help. His bayard. He hoped it was his bayard._

_The lights in the room flashed red and pulsing, emergency danger alert, when Keith touched the firm armor under his hand. He brought it around and stared. The leg in his hands was heavy and dripping fresh blood all in his lap, on his chest. His hands released the leg, Lance’s leg, so fast his knuckles ached._

_Again, a scream ripped out of his throat, being strangled and soon swallowed up as the searing heat crawled over his chest and shoulders. It ate at him painfully, slowly._

_He couldn’t breathe anymore. He had failed. The last thing he saw was Lance, face twisted and hollow, pale. The droning ring of a heart monitor flatlining in the background._

* * *

Keith woke up screaming, tears wet and coating his face with hands clawing at his chest to tear the covers off. He had been tangled up in bed, unable to breathe and too hot. Thinking about that purple darkness that was killing him.

He shot out of bed in his haste to be rid of his sheets. His paladin suit, that he had fallen asleep in, was gone and thrown across the room quickly as he hurried to the bathroom. He was going to throw up or maybe choke on his own breathing. One of those two. Maybe both.

The walls closed in on him as he saw his reflection. He looked down fast to avoid his reflection.

His fists clenched on the cold water tap, turning it violently and splashing his face. He kept his head ducked low, ashamed to meet his own eyes, to see the red rimmed around them and the flush of his face.

What was happening to him?

He wondered why it had to be like this, he wondered why this was shaking him up so badly. The thought of losing Lance scared him. But also losing anyone else on board the Castle of Lions scared him too. Hell, even the mice that were always with them. They were... They were his family now. This mismatch of people were all Keith had.

Lance was almost always in the healing pods after big missions. He was reckless and even more selfless. He wasn’t afraid to throw himself in front of someone to protect them. It happened so many times Keith thought maybe Lance’s sense to protect was a little too self-destructive. A double edged sword.

Keith should have been used to the danger Lance was always putting himself in. It was a known thing now, Shiro made sure to include before a fight that Lance needed to be careful. Of course, Lance sucked at listening, despite his big ears.

The water shut off soundlessly when Keith turned it, sighing down into the sink. Again he found himself here. Hunched over it, fingers braced on the rim tightly, staring down the drain as the last of the water slid away.

He grabbed a towel off the side of the sink and wiped his face with a small groan. He was hopeless. It was no use. The worry was going to eat him alive if he stayed in his room for another minute. He turned, walking back into his room.

Keith swiped his hand along the wall and the lights turned on slowly. He went to his drawers and pulled out a clean shirt, and after tugging it on, a pair of sweatpants.

His head turned while he was pulling his hair back into a rubber band, eyes seeking out the clock on his desk in the room. Gentle powder-blue numbers stared at him. 3:27 am. Great.

He finished getting himself dressed, calming himself down allthewhile. He counted to fifty and then counted from it backwards.  

Breathing now steady, Keith walked out of the room, sock clad feet silent on the hall floors. He didn’t have much need to be quiet since the Castle’s rooms were soundproof, but it still felt wrong to be awake when everyone else was possibly sleeping.

Not but four turns taken and Keith was standing in the doorway of the infirmary. His nerves settled lazily in his stomach and fingertips. It wasn’t all consuming and he knew how to manage it this time. How to not lose himself in it and go blank.

One of the healing pods was up on the opposite side of the room, Lance inside. Pidge was asleep next to it. A laptop was by her feet and wires strung out from the pod to her laptop. Though Keith couldn’t stay focused on that. He was more interested in Lance, specifically his leg.

There was a brace under his right knee, some slender black colored material in place of where Lance’s leg would be. Upon closer inspection Keith noticed that Lance’s knee had been taken as well, not spared from the amputation. The brace didn’t even look like a leg in shape now that Keith thought about it. The material seemed to only help keep Lance upright and balanced while he stood healing.

Lance’s cuts and bruises were gone. Color had returned to his face, too. That was the only upside that he could find to this situation. Keith wanted to reach out and rub away the small knit between Lance’s brows though, he wanted to reach out and just touch, feel the warmth of Lance alive.

Keith remembered his dream, the nightmare, and his chest tightened. He wanted to hear Lance’s voice, just once. To assure him it was alright.

“Keith?”

He turned around, startled a little by Shiro’s sleep worn voice. Shiro was in a v-neck shirt and boxers, hair clipped down to his head with a black pin. The look seemed weird on him and yet, the man still pulled it off infuriatingly well.

“You weren't in your room.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” Was all he responded with before looking back to Lance. He felt Shiro come up behind him.

“He looks good, right?” What? He turned around again, unsure if he heard Shiro right. Shiro flustered a little, sleepily wiping at his face.

“I mean, he doesn’t look like he’s dying like he was yesterday. He’s healthy. He looks like he could come out of the pod tomorrow or in two days.”

 _That’s what I thought._ Keith chewed on the inside of his lip, a few questions rising in his head. Instead he glanced down to Pidge and smiled softly. Keith looked back to Shiro again, for good this time, Lance wouldn’t get better with him moping there and staring at him with angst.

“How are you doing?”

Shiro seemed to be caught off guard at the question, either because he didn’t expect Keith to ask or he wasn't ready to open up about that. It seemed Shiro was more than willing to talk though.

“All I can think about is how light Lance felt in my arms.” Shiro paused, his fists clenching and relaxing at his sides before he breathed in steadily. “I thought he was dead when I found him in the hangar. He was barely conscious when I got over to him. Blue actually growled at me.”

Shiro laughed dryly, like it was some scary recollection, reliving that. The deep anxiety Keith had felt when he stumbled into the hangar and just saw the blood was intense, he couldn't imagine what he would have done if he saw Lance laying there. Not to mention Blue growling at… anyone. She was the most friendly of the lions. And at Shiro, even, the pilot of the Black lion.

“He was barely talking, just saying utter nonsense under his breath, I think he was trying to stay awake. I had to stop the bleeding and-”

Keith noticed Shiro’s spike in panic, it seemed to radiate off him. He cut Shiro’s rambling off.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything. It...we shouldn’t. Not here anyway.”

It was Keith’s turn to put a comforting hand on Shiro’s shoulder, squeezing gently. Shiro met his eyes, dark and haunted with what he had gone through. Keith wanted to take it away, wanted to go back to yesterday and prevent Lance from disappearing off with Pidge. They should have stuck together.

“I need to get Pidge to her room.” Shiro said, breaking away softly from Keith after putting his hand over the other’s. Keith let go, nodding. He helped by moving Pidge’s laptop over, closer to the pod. He wasn’t stupid to shut it down or unplug it. Whatever Pidge was working on would stay put until Pidge stopped it or completed it.

He watched Shiro pick up their smaller teammate and say goodnight before he left the infirmary. Leaving Keith to stand there in front of Lance and think about what he could have done differently.

 

Keith stayed in the infirmary for another three hours. Just sitting in front of the pod and leaning against it, eyes closed and content with hearing Lance’s heartbeat.

It took a bit of fiddling around with the panel to pull up the heart monitor and have it play to him audibly. If Keith wasn’t allowed to touch, he needed to listen. He fell asleep quickly, not dreaming of anything.

* * *

The castle skipped breakfast, instead they all met up in the infirmary. Keith was woken up by hushed voices and within no time he was asking what was happening. He had sat up and pulled his hair down and putting it back up in effort to tame the stray hairs that escaped during his sleep.

Papers were filed away across the room and Shiro smiled at him with a curt ‘just planning Lance’s prosthetic’.

Keith’s gut clenched miserably.  

Lunch followed that, silent and uncomfortable. The food tasted bland. The atmosphere was dimmer. Everyone still talked, but what was there to really talk about? Lance generally provided the topic or discussion for the group when they gathered at the table.

Food was eaten, small talk exhausted, and gentle ‘see you later’s exchanged.

No one showed to dinner. Keith stayed in the training room, tearing through the levels and knocking through the gladiator bots. He didn’t want to go to sleep, afraid of the nightmares he knew were to come.

* * *

It was a cut and dry routine. Train, eat, procrastinate sleep until it dragged him away, wake up in a sweat, shower, train, eat, sleep. An endless circle.

Eventually Keith found himself sleeping in Shiro’s room by the end of the week. Both of them discovering the other had horrid nightmares. The only way they could help each other was being together.

Weeks dragged by, they didn’t go out and fight, they didn’t talk about Lance. At some point, every week, the castle gathered in the room with the sunken couches and slept together.  Small sleepovers where everyone found it easiest to help someone else with a nightmare were they to wake kept everyone sane. It was a thing that spontaneously happened, that no one could pinpoint exactly when it started.

It was awful, Keith decided he hated it. He hated not having Lance around. Most importantly, he hated how just having one team member gone affected all of them so intensely. It was just one person. He wasn't even dead either.

Keith supposed that when you’re in space for a year and a half with only six other people they become everything to you. Unspokenly, they are the only way to live and having a change was burdensome. Too much so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jfc sorry for this being so LATE coming. College. Blah blah, excuse.  
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!! I loved writing it.  
> I don't know when the third chapter will be up, I'm working on it now. Your comments, kudos, and bookmarks really keep me going. Thank you so so much!!  
> scream at me on tumblr: shipperbitch.tumblr.com  
> ((ps. i do wanna say that YEAH the fic does not follow/ match up with the summary. the summary was actually the first lines I wrote that inspired the fic so I really wanted to keep it even if it didn't fit in with the fic. Just wanted to point that out there. We will get reminiscing Keith in the third chapter tho so stay tuned))


	3. Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, you fill my lungs with sweetness,  
> And you fill my head with you.  
> Can I be close to you?  
> -The Paper Kites Bloom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this took so long. College is seriously kicking my ass. And by that I mean it's got me in a goddamned chokehold and kicking me while I'm down. Please send help.  
> Anyway!! Here's chapter 3 enjoy it!

It had been a little over a month and a half, Keith realized, staring at Lance through the veiled healing pod. A month and a half since Lance was put into the healing pod and Keith was going to lose his fucking mind.

Literally. Take his poor brain out and shove it into an escape pod and hurl it into space. _Lose it_.

Keith visited Lance regularly. Not obsessively, of course! Like, maybe four times a week…

Okay so he visited Lance _every day_ but in his defense, so did Hunk. So did Shiro.

Allura, Pidge, and Coran could be found checking in on Lance sometimes, too, but it wasn’t like the others did. They were constantly working on Lance’s prosthetic. Their reason for waking up seemed to be finishing it, perfecting it. Keith didn’t really understand why it took so long to make a simple prosthetic leg. Couldn’t the Castle of Lions just _make_ it like it did with other things?

On a less head turning note, the mice were a cute, and much needed, help to their lives. They made sure everyone ate and slept. Maybe they didn’t do such a good job with the latter but the mice at least made sure people ate.

If the mice were feeling hungry, most likely the rest of the team was too. And so reluctantly everyone in the castle trudged into the dining hall and sat down for a good full bowl of goo every night. Keith grew used to it, to having everyone help each other out instead of following a schedule like they used to.

It was easier now to sit at the table and eat. Empty chairs still felt like sad placeholders but team Voltron wasn’t going to be crushed by this! No way. _Positive outlook Keith_ , he told himself.

Speaking of positive outlooks, Lance was in a stable condition to leave the healing pod two weeks ago. But of course, Allura insisted they wait until they could fit him into his new leg. Keith had some choice words against that but Hunk had stepped in, told Keith to think about it, and it made sense. Keith admitted defeat through grit teeth and a heavy heart that day.

So Lance was kept in the pod, locked in like he was the Christmas turkey, only to be pulled out when needed and no sooner. They didn’t want him to come out and suddenly need people to help him get places or to help him do basic tasks. It was an unspoken understanding that Lance would hate that.

Keith found out though that Alteans didn’t know what wheelchairs or crutches were. Since they had such advanced technology, their race never had mobility handicaps. Shiro had wondered, what about genetically? When you couldn’t change it. Allura simply responded with confusion and said, ‘Modifying genetics is elementary.’ Coran added, ‘Technology sure is great!’

Keith also found out that when Lance came out of the healing pod, he’d be able to walk around after a while. ‘A while’ meaning ten minutes according to Allura and Coran. Keith was obviously skeptical, there wasn’t any way that that could have happened. He never voiced his doubts though. Eventually though, his doubts stopped being a problem.

The dreams stopped, too. Keith no longer had graphic nightmares of sludge burning him alive, of Lance screaming, of Lance begging Keith for help while something tore into his leg and ripped it away. There were no more nightmares.

Shiro didn’t have many nightmares either. He still would wake up breathing a little heavy occasionally, have a pained look on his face and his Galra arm glowing.

But Keith was always there now, there to rub his shoulder and his back and tell him it was okay. Sometimes if it got too bad, they would go sit in the infirmary together, in front of Lance and listen to that steady heart monitor.

That too became something Keith grew used to. Not listening to Lance talk or laugh or flirt, but listening to the mechanical rendition of his heartbeat steadily cutting through the silent air.

_Today is the day_ , Keith reminded himself, still staring at Lance in the healing pod. Allura had told all of them at dinner the previous night that Lance would be fitted with his prosthetic and would finally be able to come out.

The table had erupted into loud conversation, questions and excited imaginings of what they would do after Lance awake. And all Keith could think about was what would Lance think?

Would he come out of the pod and laugh about his leg being gone? Would he make a joke like he always used to during a tense situation? Would he apologize for it? Would he scream? Keith hoped, prayed, that if Lance was going to take the news badly that he wouldn’t scream.

Keith paces slightly in the infirmary now while Shiro and Hunk tinker with the prosthetic laying on the padded table. Keith had politely asked Allura to get rid of the metal one, it was hard enough even talking about it. He felt stupid, admitting discomfort to a dumb medical table but Allura had smiled warmly and agreed with no pressing questions.

Pidge and Allura were by the healing pod, typing in code or statistics. Keith couldn’t read Altean. Pidge apparently could. And even worse, Shiro could speak it _and_ read it. He learned that Shiro had been taking lessons from Allura for months. _That explained his reaction when Lance was…_

Keith felt left out, for lack of a better word. Well, left out wasn't’t right. He felt like he was running behind the group and being slow on the uptake. The rest of the team was trying to integrate themselves into the Castle and better understand living in it (now that it was obvious they would probably spend the rest of their lives in the Castle of Lions) and Keith was being a bump on a log, staring at Lance from day to day.

“Hey, Keith, can you come help me out over here?”

He shook himself out of his pacing, and staring at Lance, and strode over to the table where Hunk was. He was ready to be of help. To no longer be a bump on a log.

“I just need you to hold this out of the way for me while I reroute this cable.”

Hunk held back a piece of grey metal, showing Keith what to hold, pressed onto the lower bit of thigh of the prosthetic. He did as instructed, glancing at Shiro who was doing something with a sharp tool and the ankle of the metal limb.

It wasn’t the first time Keith was seeing the prosthetic but it was his first time touching it. It felt just as Shiro’s Galra arm did and looked just as similar.

Towards the top of the prosthetic, at the thigh, wires and clear little tubes stuck out every which way. Between those were thread-thin strings or metal wires, Keith wasn’t sure what they were but they were so terribly small Keith doubted they had a purpose. It all led into the prosthetic and disappeared under the smooth grey metal.

When Keith thought of leg prosthetics, he thought of fake, flat feet attached to a thin rod that led into a cup of a support for the stump with a balled joint between those. This prosthetic looked nothing like that, it didn’t even come close to Keith’s imagination. It looked like an actual leg and not a skeleton. It looked like Lance’s leg.

The prosthetic was smooth from top to bottom with only slight lines to show where the limb could bend and turn. It was eerily similar to Shiro’s in color and in material. The knee and the bottom of the foot and of the toes were padded, again, much like Shiro’s in that they were black and soft to the touch.

He zoned out, admiring the technology under his hands. Hunk was bent over the top of the leg and Shiro was standing back with his hands on his hips and looking behind him at Allura and Pidge.

“You guys need any help?” He offered, ever the kind one. Pidge shook her head while Allura smiled and waved him over anyway, a gentle “Yes, you can carry Lance over to the table.”

Keith’s head came up so fast his neck ached. Lance was leaving the pod? Now? But it wasn’t really time yet, Keith thought. They didn’t gather around and make a big scene about it nor was there any announcement that here and now was the moment Lance came out of the healing pod.

Hunk stepped back, taking the prosthetic in his arms and Keith pulled his hands away after Hunk thanked him. He expected to be more excited about this moment, but all he felt now was nervousness and dark anticipation.

Keith thought there would be some big reveal, for the healing pod to shimmer away and Lance would open his eyes and say something. Instead, everyone milled around the room like nothing was going on. The front of the healing pod swept away grainy and into the back of the pod, revealing Lance.

It was all so….anticlimactic.

Without the slight tint of the blue cover, Keith could actually look at Lance, the color of him, the shape of him. He looked normal, brown and tan and just a little flushed on the tops of his cheeks from the chill. Black eyelashes fanned over his cheeks, eyebrows relaxed, and lips a little slack. Keith still found his breath caught in his throat, emotions welling up.

He never took time to realize how pretty Lance was.

_Wait, what? No. Not pretty. Wrong word._

Shiro was there, gently gathering Lance into his arms when Lance started to lean. There was no effort in Shiro hooking his arm under Lance’s shoulders and legs and carrying him down the steps to the table.

Lance didn’t wake up. That might have been the most worrisome thing Keith noticed. Lance hung limp in Shiro’s arms, and once set down on the table he looked to be sleeping, head slightly tilted to the side. But not once did his eyes open.

Every time someone came out of the healing pods they were conscious. Why wasn’t Lance? Maybe it had to do with the fact that Lance had been in there for over a month?

Allura was undoing the bandages after she pulled back the fabric of the space suit and the elastic sock, revealing the stump of Lance’s right leg. A thin line of scar tissue contrasted with the natural hue of Lance’s skin. It wasn’t as big or jagged as Shiro’s scarring. Keith supposed the healing pod was to thank for that.

Keith hadn’t seen any above-the-knee amputations before but he was sure that Lance’s was the most pristine and perfectly executed. There was barely even a scar, Keith had to really _look_ to see it. The way Lance’s thigh had healed, it looked unreal. In Coran’s words, technology was great, specifically Altean technology.

There was an almost lazy atmosphere in the infirmary and it felt so weird. Keith expected there to be a rush, like there was when Lance was in the exact same position from before. But less blood... _No_. He refused to go back there. He refused to keep remembering Lance that way when he was getting so much better. It helped no one.

Pidge said, “This is going to take a while, you’re welcome to go do other things.” And Keith didn’t know who she was really talking to. Shiro nodded though, gestured to Keith and Hunk and that’s how Keith found himself walking with Shiro out of the infirmary and to the training deck.

He wasn't there for the amputation itself, and now he wouldn’t be there for when Lance was getting his prosthetic put on. That felt wrong. Neglectful. But at least Shiro and Hunk were with him. Right?

 

Pidge joined the trio in the training deck a good hour or two later. She seemed to get the memo, as she was already in her paladin armor.

They did group training, level after level after level of flying, shooting robots and Altean gladiators. Keith was sweating when he heard Shiro say “Begin training sequence 10.”

Every muscle ached as he flew in behind Hunk to shield his back. His bayard, already formed into the sword, clattered against the metal staff. The force was felt up Keith’s arm and he grunted as he shoved the gladiator back. Pidge ran out from behind him, charging the gladiator which was twirling the staff and readjusting.

Keith saw Shiro run up behind the bot and Keith already knew it would sense him back there, even with Pidge taking up its attention. So Keith came at the gladiator bot too, so that Shiro would have cover. In no time at all, Lance was the last thing on Keith’s mind.

 

Keith didn’t know how much time had passed. What he did know was that the team fought more training levels than they probably have combined on their stay in the castle.

All of the paladins were sitting or lying on the floor, panting and sweating. Shiro was the only one standing, hands on his knees and breathing hard, sweat dripping to the floor. Even he was winded, Keith thought, at least he’s really human and not some robot like Lance suggested a few weeks ago. ‘ _Shiro’s gotta be some fighting robot or war god, right? How does he keep doing this?’_

“One more?” Shiro suggested as he wiped the back of his hand over his forehead and Pidge immediately responded, “If we do one more level I’m going to throw up.” Hunk seconded with, “Please, mercy.”

Keith could probably go for one more round if he really pushed himself to. He considered it, looked at Shiro, but Pidge kicked her foot into his thigh, drawing a yelp from him. “Keith doesn’t want to do another one either, right Keith?”

He winced while rubbing his leg, nodding solemnly. Pidge was definitely going to get some hair dye in her shampoo at some point this week, he thought while shooting her a glare.

Shiro sighed and stood up straight. “I guess we can go check on Lance then? I’m pretty sure he’s up now, Allura sai-”

“Wait wait, Lance is awake… And we’re just out here training?!” Keith interrupted, anger flaring.

A stale silence fell on the four paladins. Keith finally standing up and staring at Shiro for an answer. No no no, he shouldn’t get angry over this.

“He wasn’t going to be woken up all at once. Allura said she was going to bring him halfway ‘up’ whatever that means. He wouldn’t have recognized that we were there.”

He could feel his blood pressure rising. Did everyone on this damn castle know something Keith didn’t? Why wasn’t he being informed of things anymore? He was a paladin, they were a _team_. “Like that’s a good excuse?! We need to be there for him! He shouldn’t have to-”

“Keith. We’re all putting trust into Allura and Coran to take care of Lance right now. What can we do for him now other than stand there and watch? We can offer emotional support but that’s it. It won’t help Lance recover faster. And even if he is woken up, he won’t want any of us around to see him.” The sudden words from Hunk clotheslined Keith. He was right. What could they do for Lance?

Even still, Keith wanted to be there for Lance. If he was taking the news bad, Keith thought that at least his friends should be there.

“Losing his leg is going to affect him in a way none of us will understand. I can probably sympathize, because of my arm, but everyone takes loss differently. It’s best that his first moments awake are spent alone.”

Keith looked desperately at Shiro. Why was everyone pitching against him?

The fight left him anyway. If he was going to direct his anger somewhere, might as well put it somewhere productive. He took a deep breath and grunted, “Begin training sequence 27”

The rest of the team scrambled to their feet as four gladiators and a group of spherical bots gathered around them. He barely registered Pidge grumbling in complaint as he slammed his bayard into one of the gladiators, shield up next to him. When he charged at the gladiator, he imagined it was Zarkon, staring at him and smiling condescendingly with those bright eyes and cold face. His sword sliced through the metal of the robot without problem.

* * *

Lance was one of those people that liked being cold so long as they were adequately dressed for it. If the room was freezing, _good_. Then he could bundle up in the blankets and a nice big heavy hoodie and sweatpants. If he himself was cold, not so good.

Every single inhale felt like ice water filling his lungs, white and chilly and unforgiving. The cold solidified and radiated in his core. He was sure to die of hypothermia, frostbite, and whatever other cold-related injury or ailment he could get. He was sure he already had it.

So it was honestly no surprise when he opened his eyes and saw snow racing past his face. He could feel his lungs expanding, sore and weak from misuse. _That cold air_ , he thought. Damn ice planet. Or where ever he was. Point was, Lance was curing it.

He blinked and...Oh. Nevermind. Hair planet. Change of scenery he guessed?

With his vision finally focusing, he could see that the snow whipping around in front of him was in fact hair, twisted up pretty and flawless into a messy bun.

When he inhaled again, it was to warm moist air that dried up his throat. He tried turning his head with an unhappy whine. The change in temperatures _hurt_. A firm magnetic pull, or was it a push, held his head down gently, not allowing him to shake away from the new air.

He wanted to know why he couldn’t move, why his head wouldn’t listen to his thoughts. He knew Allura was near him if not standing directly over him. He could still see nothing but pretty white hair that led into dark skin and piercing eyes.

Lance blinked again, smiling lazily, and tried to tell Allura ‘ _hi’_ or ‘ _you look so pretty’_. His mouth only opened slightly and allowed the barest inhale of air before he was closing his eyes again. He was waaay too tired to be speaking. Wow. That was a first.

He suddenly remembered their mission. Galra faces all around him, grinning and shouting crude things as they grabbed at him, held him down. All the memories came flooding back in a sickening wave and Lance wanted to scream, to reach down and check his leg. Was it...

“Lance.” He heard. Soft and kind and his eyes immediately filled with tears. Why? He always loved Allura’s voice, her cute accent, the way she phrased things. He tried to turn his head again, hide himself from the princess. She shouldn’t see him cry.

“Lance it’s okay. Open your eyes.” A warm hand pressed on his cheek, fingers gentle under his jaw and he opened his eyes, looked up at the princess. She was blurry but still gorgeous.

Allura smiled and something deep in Lance’s gut tightened. His fingers itched. He wanted to hug her so bad. He wanted to tuck his face into her shoulder and squeeze her. Then again, now that he was capable of more developed brain function, he wanted to hug everyone else. Where were they?

Lance turned his head, finally able to break his head away from the grip behind him and stare straight across the room. It was empty. He could see Allura’s dress in his peripheral but there was no one standing next to her or across the room. When he blinked again, the world stayed dark. His eyes didn’t open back up. Maybe a nap was in order. Yeah, a nap sounded really good.

* * *

Keith all but slid into the infirmary. He remembered sitting down with Hunk and Pidge one morning and peering over their shoulders while they watched cute animal videos. He remembered watching the smallest golden retriever puppy scramble from one room to the next upon hearing its name being called.

He imagined that must have been what he looked like. Minus the cute tounge lolling out of his mouth and the crinkly, happy eyes.

Instead, his heart was in his throat and every nerve in his body felt like heavy iron shackles were locked onto them and rattling like angry bees.

Allura said Lance was awake. Lance was awake and talking!

The rest of the paladins had scurried after Keith. They had left the training deck mid-level and with a gladiator bot following after its fleeing opponents. He barely remembered Pidge warbling out ‘End training sequence!’ as she ran after Keith.

They all but shoved each other down the hall in their haste to get to the infirmary. Coran shhed them loudly when they burst in the wide door and called for Lance.

Keith’s eyes found Lance in half a second. He was still laying on the table but the prosthetic was on. Or rather, in. Attached to his body. He could see the few trailings of blood on the table and on some cloth tossed onto a table with various instruments. But he couldn’t focus on that.

Lance’s eyes were open. Barely. But they were open. Wide and huge pupils staring unknowingly upward led Keith to think maybe Lance was hopped up on something. Morphine maybe? He couldn’t care, Lance was conscious.

Hunk made an incomprehensible noise and shot off towards the table with a cry of, “Lance!” which got the smaller male to turn his head. Keith never felt so weak in his life. Seeing Lance voluntarily move like that.

Allura was suddenly between Lance and the rest of the group, looking just about to yell at the paladins to sit down and stop acting like a bunch of crazy animals. But Hunk stopped himself, stood a little to the side of Allura, and wiped at his face, unable to stop the small sob. Keith thought that if anyone here was to see Lance first it was Hunk.

“He is very weak. I don’t want to overwhelm him with all of us gathering towards him at once.” She explained and Hunk nodded. Pidge was inching closer as well from behind Keith and all he could focus on was the soft light in Lance’s eyes. He recognized them. Lance knew they were there. Lance was _awake_!

Lance’s brows scrunched together minutely before he turned his head around, away from everyone in the room and Keith’s heart sank. Was something wrong? There shouldn’t be, Allura and Coran took care of everything. Lance was in perfect condition. Almost without Keith realizing it, his eyes went back down to Lance’s right leg.

The prosthetic didn’t lay the way it had when Hunk and Shiro were fiddling with it. It no longer looked like an inanimate object, despite being just that. Somehow, now that it was part of Lance, the leg was alive. It was resting like that of muscles relaxed but still holding resistance.

Keith noticed with slight awe that when Lance’s shoulders hunched a little, the toes of the prosthetic twitched right along with the real ones.

“Lance.”

Shiro’s deep voice cut through the quiet room, soft and worrisome. It was different. Like some long lost partner. Keith had to actually look at Shiro, who was walking through the door, to make sure that Shiro was the one actually talking. He looked sympathetic...distraught.

Lance turned, a small and tired glance back towards the group, and his entire face bloomed red. Keith might have found it cute were it not for the tears that immediately began rolling down Lance’s face. His hands came up, covering his eyes and muting the broken exhale.  

Despite Allura’s warning, that sight pushed all of the paladins into action, crowding around the table and fussing over Lance. No one told him to not cry. There were only gentle words of ‘you’re okay’ ‘it’s okay’ ‘everything is going to be alright’ ‘we’re here Lance’. Keith found one of his hands occupying Lance’s while Hunk held the other. Shiro placed a comforting hand on Lance’s shoulder, not bothered with the trembling under it.

Keith didn’t know what to say, or what to do anymore. He had so many plans and ideas of what it was going to be like when Lance was finally out of the healing pod and awake. He expected Lance to either shove everyone away and cry or to fake a smile and laugh and bounce around like nothing had happened.

But Lance let everyone near him while he cried softly, not saying a word. He accepted the silent comfort, the calming touches of his friends. And that seemed to be far worse that what Keith could have ever imagined.

* * *

The only loud noise in the dining hall was silverware clattering against bowls and plates. Lance ate his food goo in peace while everyone chattered. He smiled every now and then, laughed at a joke or some funny story. Those smiles never reached his eyes though. The light seemed to be completely sucked out of Lance even with all the happy energy bustling around him. He was right in his element and yet he wasn’t fitting in at all.

Keith watched Lance the whole time, analyzing. Lance had caught Keith’s eye once or twice and when Keith didn’t look away and kept staring Lance would blush and look back down at his bowl of goo. He thought it was weird. Lance would have squared up his shoulders and noisily asked him why he was staring.

Lance was much more timid, now. Keith guessed it wasn’t really his fault. He lost one of his legs, it was a big deal. Lance had the right to be different, to act the way he was. It still never settled right in Keith’s stomach though.

They had taken a while to walk all the way back to the dining hall from the infirmary. Not because Lance had any discomfort or couldn’t walk on his own but because he would stop and stare at his leg, reach down and brush fingers over the metal.

Shiro never left Lance’s side. He always had a hand on Lance’s lower back, helping him walk. He made small comments about Lance’s gait, told him to lean on one side or the other. Even now, Shiro was sitting next to Lance, eating slowly and smiling with a spoon poised in his fingers accusingly pointed at Hunk while they talked about something that happened in the kitchen earlier.

Keith honestly couldn't care less about the conversations. All he wanted to do was ask Lance how he was feeling, if he could help him with anything. Once again, not for the first or last time, Keith felt helpless.

“As much as I’d love to sit and talk about everything I missed, I’m really really tired.” Lance cut in, interrupting Pidge mid rant about the castle. All eyes turned onto him. His bowl was empty and spoon placed straight on the table. He gave a nervous smile and pushed back in his chair.

“You’ve been in a healing pod for over a month, dude. How are you _still_ tired?”

“A coma and sleeping are two very different things.”

“Well…”

Keith butted in with a, “I’ll walk you back.” and the heads turned from Lance’s end of the table to Ketih’s. It was actually comical the way everyone was in sync. Even Lance was staring at him weird.

Keith fixed them all with a look and pushed his half eaten food go away, standing up and walking around the table.

Lance said, “I can walk back to my room on my own.” And Keith said, “I know.” It was left at that, no one saying anything in opposition, and Lance not looking like he was going to continue his resistance.

Keith watched Lance turn to Shiro and share a glance with him for a while before he stood up, hands tight on the table. “If you’re going to walk me back can you not stare at me like you’re trying to figure out where my tattoo is?”

Keith’s eyebrows drew together. What? “You have a tattoo?”

“No. But you keep staring at me like there’s something wrong. It’s creeping me out.” Lance stepped away from the table, around the chair with a slight limp in his step. He looked completely tense, like he was uncomfortable in his own skin.

Keith mumbled an apology and started walking, knowing Lance would follow after him. He wondered if Lance got a tattoo where he would put it...

 

Halfway to Lance’s room Keith stopped and Lance all but ran into him. He felt the hard press of Lance right behind him and an undignified squawk before Keith was turning around to check on the blue paladin who was presently wheeling himself backwards.

“What the hell?” Lance demanded, Keith reached out to grab Lance by the arm. He was tilting way too far back for Keith’s comfort. “Warn me before you suddenly stop!”  Keith mumbled an apology before he let go of Lance.

“What? We aren’t even at my room yet.” Lance looked around, becoming more and more agitated if the way Lance’s snappy tone was anything to go by. “I know.” Keith said.

“Then why are we stopped?” Lance crossed his arms, staring at Keith headlong now. The first time since he was out of the pod Lance was finally looking at him.

Keith took in a breath and sighed. “Can we talk?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?”

“That’s not what I mean. I just-”

Lance stayed quiet, still looking at Keith. He didn’t miss the way blue eyes quickly ran down his body, assessing just like Keith had done earlier.

“I want to help you.”

Whatever answer Keith was expecting, it sure wasn’t Lance laughing. Harsh and bitter in a way that made Keith feel small and stupid for even opening his mouth. When Lance looked at him again his eyes were filled with nothing but anger.

“If you want to help me you can get my leg back, but since we know that isn’t going to happen you can stop trying to be nice.” Keith was going to respond, despite being so shocked but Lance beat him to it, continuing. “I didn’t even have time to get used to this!” He said, angrily gesturing down to the metal.

“I woke up, got told my right leg is gone, and suddenly rushed out to go eat. That isn’t _normal_ , Keith! We’re on a freaking alien castle that can take away months of physical therapy and gait training and whatever else I would have needed on Earth! I shouldn’t be walking around like this! I want help but I’ve already gotten so much of it there’s not any need for me to get more. I’m perfectly fine!”

Keith remembered the look on Lance’s face when Coran had told him all he needed to do was hop off the table and walk. Now that he was thinking back on it, all the paladins looked at Coran like he was crazy. Allura had smiled at them and nodded, reached out and took Lance’s hand and told him to stand up.

Lance had mumbled something about a christian parable, trying to be funny because Keith understood the reference, with tears drying and an untrusting hand firm on the edge of the table. ‘ _I’m not going to be able to stand_ ’ He’d said. The embarrassed flush was high on his cheeks as Allura gave him a gentle tug.

The rest of the team watched, fascinated as Lance landed on his feet, the foot and toes of the prosthetic flexing and catching Lance’s weight as easy as if it were muscle memory. The stuttered and shocked woosh of air from Lance’s lips was loud in the infirmary.

He had thought Lance would’ve been happy to be able to stand and walk like nothing had happened but the look on the paladin’s face was the opposite. He looked horrified that he was standing.

And now, that look was on Lance’s face again, anxiety and worry swirling in the wet, pretty blue eyes that stared down at the prosthetic. God, Keith was so sick of Lance crying. It hurt seeing him like this. _Why Lance_ , he thought.

Keith came forward like he was approaching some wild animal and Lance didn’t push him away; he let himself be hugged.

“It’s a lot to take in. I wouldn’t know, but you’re strong, Lance.” _This isn’t something you have to go through alone_.

Lance brought his arms around Keith, holding him close firmly and pressed his face down onto Keith. He felt the shoulder of his shirt grow damp and he couldn’t be bothered to care, simply taking caution to not be shouldered in the chin while Lance cried.

Keith, for some odd reason, had always pinned Lance to be a loud crier. Maybe it was because Lance was generally a loud person. But Keith thought Lance would be someone who sniffled and sobbed loud and ugly, who sucked snot back up in their nose while swiping their hands over their eyes, exhaling loud and broken. But Lance was the complete opposite of that.

Lance held everything in, only tears and strained exhales escaping right along with the tremors in his hands and shoulders. Keith distantly remembered hearing Lance mention something about living in a big family and how he knew when to be quiet. He remembered Pidge laughing and saying ‘Yeah right.’

He really lost track of time in the hall, standing there with Lance. It couldn’t have been long but then again Keith was recently having a problem with noticing time it seemed. Lance was the one to pull back first, a pitiful mumble of ‘sorry’ as he stepped back, weight leaned onto his right side.

Keith watched him with a soft expression, ready for Lance to change his mind and come back to him again. Keith didn’t want to stop holding Lance. He wanted to be selfish, he wanted to take Lance back to his room and not let anyone else come near. He wanted to be the one that made Lance smile and forget about his worries.

“I’m sorry… I’m being dumb.”

“No, you’re not. It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling right now.” Keith validates. Lance needs to understand that this isn't his fault and additionally, he doesn’t need to hide whatever reactions he’s having about this situation.

In a big jump of courage, Keith cups Lance’s face with a hand, his other hand has somehow taken up the space in one of Lance’s own, their fingers tangled loosely. Lance looks at him, head slightly turned into Keith’s hand. His eyes are so red. He looks exhausted.

“It’s _okay_. You get to be sad and angry and frustrated. Don’t apologize for that.”

Lance gives Keith a look, one that he can’t decipher and Lance holds still for a moment before stepping back. He smiles and wipes at his eyes gently.

“Thanks, Keith.” he says, and Keith nods. Lance rolls back on his heels then up onto his toes as he swings his arms by his sides, trying to look calm and bored despite crying himself dry a few moments ago. Keith can still see the tension in his shoulders, the nervousness in his eyes. Instead of mentioning it he pats Lance on the side of the arm and starts walking. _Maybe things will get better faster than I expected_ . He thought. _Just as long as I’m by Lance’s side._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance is A W A K E!!  
> first off, I want to say a huge huge thank you to everyone who comments and leaves kudos. They always make my entire day whenever I get an email.  
> second, transfemoral amputations take MONTHS (I would even say years) to heal, not to mention the process of getting fit for a prosthetic and doing physical therapy and then returning to normal life. On this note I want to say that this fanfic is so obviously fictional. Because of this I got so much wiggle room to do what I want, plus Shiro's prosthetic makes my little head whirl with how he got it, how all the druids took care of him.  
> but anyway! I will be working hard on chapter 4!  
> until next time. (ง •̀ω•́)ง✧  
> beat me up on tumblr: shipperbitch.tumblr.com  
> (also, if you have fanart, please message me on tumblr about it after you have posted it and tagged it with WMIIS! thank you so much for those who asked if they could draw scenes! For those who want to, my answer is go fuckin nuts kids)


	4. Reminiscing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wheezes.  
> It's here. Take it. Have this.  
> This isn't beta'd, yeah.

_"Grab him. Don't let him scream for help"_

_A Galra looming over him backhands him hard enough to daze, even with his helmet on. The slight glow in his helmet stutters and goes out and Lance curses while blinking quickly._

_His hands fumble with his bayard, he knows it’s in his armor, it’s right there. All he needs to do is reach down and activate it._

_He can't. His arms are held roughly behind his back, pulled so tight they feel like they're going to pop right off his body._

_A massive hand comes across his face, he feels a furred finger over his chin and he squirms. He can’t breathe with the hand smothering him like this._

_Lance ducks his head down and bites as hard as he can, tasting a foul liquid spill over his lips._

_Someone behind him howls in pain. He kicks back, satisfied with the crunch of bone under his booted heel and the resulting, deeper yell._

_Thank you Keith for self defense training._

_For a moment there isn't anyone holding him anymore and that’s all he needs. He throws himself forward and bolts out of the group of Galra._

_He has to get to Pidge. He has to tell her that this was all a trap. The Galra are here for Voltron. The Vymrnians knew it was a set up! An inappropriately timed voice shrieks, I was right! It was a trap! Suck it, Shiro. I was right._

_Lance runs so fast he has no idea where he's going. Just, away. Away from those Galra._

_Without thought Lance feels his bayard materialize in his hand. A slight glow from the trailing of quintessence energy lights up his side._

_There are Galra drones up ahead and while Lance is slowing down, but not at all stopping his feet from moving, he points his gun, taking aim and breathing out slow._

_Every shot meets its mark, straight through the head of a robot, sending sparks and molten metal in an arc._

_When there are no more drones in front of him he turns around quickly, already prepared to shoot whatever was behind him. The Galra had to have followed him._

_But there isn't anyone there. His shoulders fall a little in confusion._

_His heart is jackrabbiting in his chest. He's had plenty of run ins with Galra before, face to face or not. But that was something totally different. Lance remembers the sinister aura about the group of soldiers, cackling and grabbing at him._

_His eyes scan the broken huts and abandoned dirt homes. There isn't anyone around. He gives one more quick glance behind him before reaching up to his helmet._

_"Pidge?"_

_Static screeches back at him and he grits his teeth. He calls for Pidge again, keeping a cautious eye out around him for anything that moves. Still nothing._

_Lance is about to say a few very choice words that Hunk would probably be up his ass about saying when the ground shakes so bad Lance fumbles a few steps._

_"FUCK!" He shouts when something shoves him from behind, completely knocking his bayard out of his hand._

_So much for keeping his choice words to himself._

_When he turns around there's fire everywhere. Nothing is spared from it._

_Lance may have been worried if he didn't know for sure that the most of the Vymrnians were evacuated already._

_He smacks the side of his helmet and shouts for Pidge, Shiro, anyone. It’s useless._

_As he turns to go grab his bayard, a foot slams hard into his side, managing to catch a soft part of the armor and send him reeling for air._

_He doesn't stumble to the ground though, he managed to keep his footing. Another small thank you to Keith, that son of a bitch and his irritating but good fighting lessons._

_But now when he inhales it feels like someone is jamming knives into his lungs and he whimpers, a hand coming up to help hold his side on his next inhale. He’s got a broken rib or two. There isn’t any other way to describe the pain._

_There are more hands on him now than there was before, shoving him to his knees on the ground before another hand grabs the back of his neck and squeezes hard. He can't wiggle away from it and kisses the dirt._

_If his heart was running fast before, now it's kicked into overdrive._

_The hands hold him firmly against the ground and no matter where he kicks it just won't connect with anything. His wrists and elbows are leaned on with heavy weight that makes Lance know he’s going to get bruises through his armor._

_"We have secured the Blue Paladin again. Yes, sir. He won't get away from us this time, I'm sorry."_

_Someone jams their heel into Lance's lower back and he grits his teeth, holding still now. He knows the Galra are strong, strong enough that if that foot was brought down it could shatter his spine._

_Just for show, to voice his irritation, he growls._

_"Now what to do with you until our ship gets here." One of them muses cruelly, close to Lance's left. His fingers twitch with the desire to punch whoever said that in the face._

_He doesn't get much time to himself to think about who’s ass he’s going to kick first because the Galra all move at the same time. He's grabbed onto harder like he's some slippery fish that would wiggle away if they weren't careful enough._

_Suddenly the world lurches and Lance is staring up at the sky. His brain takes note of eight Galra around him. His eyes flick up just a little and, make that nine, notices a foot somewhere off to the side._

_Lance is about to kick himself upwards when a hand grabs him by the throat. All of his collected, battle-honed thoughts scramble with the loud and blaring panic for air._

_He can't breathe. He can feel his lungs straining for even the smallest inhale._

_His mouth falls open in desperation and one of the Galra offhandedly says, "Hey, I heard the paladins are delicate. Don't break it before Zarkon has him." And Lance wants to sob praises to whoever it is because the hand on his neck lifts enough to let him gasp._

_He barely has his lungs full before he's being kicked in the side, a pained noise wrenching out of him._

_That spurs him on though, yanking on his hands and his legs to struggle free. He isn't going to lay here and give up just because of a little hard breathing._

_At least that's what he thinks before a foot kicks at his head and the world goes dark for a moment._

_When color finally comes back, it's all muted and dull and everything is swirling double. He thinks maybe he's going to throw up._

_Lance squeezes his eyes shut and moans in pain, he wishes Pidge was here to electrocute every one of these furry purple bastards._

_Lance doesn’t register the talking around him, he can’t hear the Galra laughing and calling him weak and pathetic. He can hear the buzzing in his ears, the blood rushing under his skin, heart pounding hard._

_He watches a few of them move, walk down by his feet and oh. Oh. The hands are gone and that was such a stupid move. He hardly thinks before he acts._

_His foot is in a Galra’s face, blood spraying on the white armor, claws are scratching lines into his arms, thankfully protected via hard plating._

_One moment he’s on the ground and the next he’s up and running again. There’s voices shouting behind him, loud and in a completely alien language._

_Lance scoops his bayard up from the ground. His feet move faster. Go. Move. Faster. Faster. Faster. Don’t get caught again._

_He’s sprinting across an empty plain when he suddenly falls forward. No, that’s not right. Now that there’s pain flaring raw and all consuming at the back of his leg he realizes he didn’t trip, his right foot just didn’t come out to catch his next step._

_He rolls over onto his back with his gun pointed out, tears already hot in his eyes from the pain and anger and he sees a Galra over him. Were he innocent, were he not experienced with killing Galra, he would have hesitated._

_Blood drops over his face when the blast of energy tears right between the Galra’s eyes. The death of a comrade doesn’t stop the rest of them._

_His bayard is ripped out of his hands and the body is tossed off him._

_Fists and feet start coming at him from every angle. The best bet he has is to curl up to protect himself but strong grips have him by the ankles._

_He hears them spit and curse at him before he’s screaming. One of the Galra had stomped onto his right foot, effectively breaking his ankle._

_“Try running again.” Is snarled into his ear when a hand holds him down by the throat._

_The foot comes down again, this time on his shin and the crack he hears makes his head reel. The pain is so fast and blinding he can’t stop from screaming._

_Through blurry vision he sees a sword and he shakes his head, tries to beg, pleads for them to stop. It doesn’t help. Fingers dig into his broken leg and wrenches another broken wail out of him._

_The sword comes down over his foot. It doesn’t go clean. It get’s caught between bone and the hard armor before it’s wrenched back with a squelch and then down again._

_Lance’s leg is hacked at crudely while he screams. He can’t say anything anymore. He can’t breathe anymore. His voice gives out, cracking and becoming hoarse._

_He’s suddenly being jostled, hands on his shoulders and shaking him hard._

_“Lance!” He hears, over and over_ and over.

He stops screaming when he opens his eyes this time. The sight before him makes him sob.

It’s Keith, Keith is there, in a plain ratty t-shirt and the most terrified look.

Keith is leaning over him, the blankets are off towards the foot of the bed.

It’s just Keith.

Lance’s eyes make a desperate track around the room. He’s in the castle. He’s in his room.

He looks down then, he’s distantly aware he’s hyperventilating.

The prosthetic is just laying there, looking about as innocent as a stick. It sure seemed as useless as one at this moment.

It hurts. Not his body but the prosthetic, the ankle. The pain is sharp and _twisting_. It burns so bad that Lance can’t breathe. His leg isn’t there anymore. He shouldn’t be feeling anything.

Hands are cupping his face, forcing him to look up and oh hey there’s Keith again; His pretty grey eyes. He looks like he’s seen a ghost he’s so pale. His pale lips are moving. Lance can’t hear what he’s saying.

Lance’s vision blurs again and hot liquid spills over his cheeks. The Galra’s blood. No. No no no no. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to bring his hands up to claw at the Galra hands holding him.

A weight presses on his hips now and strong, thin fingers close around his wrists, pressing them into the soft bed. “Lance!” He hears again.

He opens his eyes again. It’s a hard and torturous back and forth of _focus on Keith_ and _shut your eyes, block everything out, stay safe_.

He can see Keith’s shoulders rise and fall slowly. He watches that, listens to Keith breathe, listens to him TELL him to breathe.

It takes longer than he expected but he finally matches pace with Keith. With that his heart also calms down though it’s still beating pretty quickly. The ringing in his ears is gone.

He can feel the hot blood on his face isn’t blood but his own tears. He’s horrified at what’s become of himself. That Keith is witnessing him fall apart so destructively.

Now he can take everything in slowly. Keith is sitting down on top of him and holding him down. Looking pretty scared but determined.  
The lights in the room are on. Bright and innocent to the disaster below on the bed. It’s fake light. It isn’t sunlight or light from fire burning down huts and homes. Lance is in his room, not on Vymrn.

“Lance?” Keith asks. He sounds so scared and Lance doesn’t like that small voice.

Keith’s grip loosens minutely, testing to see if Lance would freak out and when he didn’t, his hands came off entirely.

Lance swallows, brings his hands up to wipe away the tears. He wants to feel shocked or embarrassed that Keith is here. But there’s just a hollow nothing inside him. He’s tired.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks out. His voice is  _ruined_ from screaming.

He feels Keith move off of him, closer to the wall. The beds are too small to fit both of them and yet they make it work.

“Can I go get you some water? I’ll be right across the room.” Keith sounds like he’s talking to some small child and Lance might have snapped at him were he feeling up for it. Instead he nods, keeping his face hidden in his hands.

The bed dips as Keith gingerly crawls over him and gets out of the bed.

Lance counts Keith’s steps across the room. _One, two, three, four, five…_ The sink faucet squeaks and the sound of water follows. Lance can hear the cup fill with water and the squeak of the faucet again as it’s turned off. _One, two, three, four…_

Keith announces himself with a gentle “Sit up,” and Lance pulls his hands away from his face. He inhales and then opens his eyes.

The lights are dimmer and Keith is moving now to sit on the edge of the bed, the cup of water in his hands held out to Lance.

He reaches out and takes it. The cup is cold but Keith’s fingers are warm. Lance wants them on his wrists again, on his shoulders, his cold face.

He mumbles a thank you into the cup before the water reaches his lips. The cup is empty before Lance knows it. His throat feels better and not like he gargled sand and glass.

Keith is still watching him with those doe eyes and his hands look tense like he’s trying his best not to reach out and touch.

Lance smiles a little at Keith and says sorry again. Though this time he isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for.

Keith shakes his head, gently takes the cup from him, and says, “You should go back to sleep. I’ll be here.”

Lance really doesn’t want to close his eyes again, afraid of reliving that moment on Vymrn again. He lays back in his bed, pillows squishing under his head as he sighs heavy and loud.

Instead of sleeping he thinks about Keith holding him in the hallway earlier. He thinks of Keith saying goodnight and looking guilty in the open doorway. He thinks of the way Keith blushed when Lance asked him to stay.

He thinks about how warm Keith was next to him in bed, head propped up in his hand while he talked quietly about the paladin training while Lance was in the healing pod.

He feels safe with Keith watching over him and so his eyes close. Lance falls asleep while he listens to Keith fix things around the room after tucking him back in. He should probably tell Keith later to not touch his shit. Yeah.

* * *

It’s uncomfortably hot when Keith wakes up. He thinks maybe he just got tangled up in his sheets again or he moved too much during the night.

Both of those options are ruled out when he turns his head and knocks his forehead right into something hard. He might have heard a comical KONK noise of two coconuts hitting were he more awake and could think about what just happened.

Instead he whines and brings a hand up to his face. Ow. His whine is accompanied by another one, higher in pitch and followed by something slurred in spanish.

When his eyes open it’s to a blurry Lance.

Keith’s first thought is _cute_ because Lance looks like some sad puppy who was told not to get onto the couch. His nose is all scrunched up and his eyes are crinkly even while shut. And his fucking hair is a mess. If Keith thought he got cowlicks bad… oh man.

Keith has seen Lance when he wakes up before when they had super early mission calls, Keith assumes Lance runs his fingers through his hair while he’s going to the meeting area.

But now, Keith is here as Lance is actually waking up. He gets to see all the vulnerable sides that Lance liked to keep hidden from everyone on the castle except Hunk.

By vulnerable, Keith means ridiculous. Lance is still whining and cursing at Keith. His eyes crack open and oh god Lance is stunning. Keith can feel his face heat up.

Lance is just inches in front of him, he can see each individual eyelash, they’re brown, not black Keith notices with silent awe. Lance’s eyes are so big and blue and dark. He looks confused and so so tired.

Lance has freckles. They’re faint and scarce but there. Keith never noticed them before. His eyes track down Lance’s nose, thin and scrunched up.

Lance’s lips are a little chapped, too. His tongue is heavily pink compared to the tan color of his skin and...oh. Keith’s eyes race back up to Lance’s. He totally wasn’t staring at his mouth or anything.

Lance is blushing, his eyes aren’t on Keith’s. He too is looking at the other’s lips. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He clears his throat and sits up quickly. His heart is racing.

“Sorry for waking you.” He says in attempt to break the tension.

“Did you headbutt me to wake me up? Was I really making that much noise? Hunk never complains when we sleep with each other.” Wow, Keith almost forgets that Lance just woke up from some traumatic experience yesterday. Lance hasn’t at all lost his whininess.

Keith can feel some blunt comment on his tongue that Lance would so predictably counter with something dumb. He doesn’t say it.

“Did you sleep alright?” He asks instead, eyes finding the clock across the room. It glows softly and displays 9:24am.

“Yeah” Lance turns, feet coming out of the blankets and swinging off the bed. He sits there with his feet on the floor, looking down.

Keith watches him swallow and then close his eyes, hands going down to hold his thigh right above the prosthetic with a wince.

“Can I help with anything?”

Lance looks like he’s in pain. He only shakes his head and breathes in. “It’s just a little ache.” He says quietly, like he doesn’t believe his own words, “It’ll go away.”

They sit there together on the bed, waiting for the pains to disappear. The next time Keith looks at the clock, when Lance finally sighs steady and walks to his bathroom, it says 10:56am.  

* * *

 

Lance grunts when Keith smacks him in the arm with the bo staff. It’s hard and hurts, he’s thankful that his paladin armor takes the brunt of it. Keith barks at him to block and Lance breathes out through his nose hard.

He’s getting tired of Keith’s voice. Do this Lance, do that Lance, you’re doing it wrong Lance, hold your feet farther apart Lance, don’t lock your arms Lance, blah blah blah.

He twirls his staff and sees an opening on Keith’s left, he swings hard, wanting Keith to feel it. His staff is knocked upward by Keith’s own and the smug look on the red paladin’s face makes Lance want to fucking _scream_.

“This isn’t called training if all you’re doing is making me defend!” He accuses, taking a few steps back to get away and Keith just follows after him.

He blocks Keith’s next swing and the the one after that. Each hit is getting harder and harder and Lance is pretty sure Keith has some fucking beef with him.

It’s been a week! What could he have possibly done to Keith within that time to piss him off? Nothing. That’s the answer. The only answer Lance will accept.

Lance thinks he’s done pretty well in befriending Keith over the week. They sleep in the same bed every night so there’s that to start off with; Keith usually leaves once they wake up.

But they sit next to each other at the dining table, they throw banter back and forth, Lance kicks at Keith sometimes and grins when Keith kicks him back on his prosthetic but he just says “Sorry, didn’t feel that.”

When Keith jabs the end of the bo staff into his shoulder Lance actually yelps. His fingers grip onto his own staff and he needs to put in effort to not snap it in half or smack Keith in the face with it.

When he takes a step back he lands on his foot wrong, either that or the prosthetic just decides it’s on Keith’s side today and sharp pain jolts down to his toes.

He knows it’s fake pain. It’s not real. And yet his brain still shrieks out ‘Sharp sword! Sharp sword!’ and Lance is on the ground with a hiss.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Lance I didn’t-” Keith starts, worry evident and Lance waves a hand as his other stays busy holding onto his thigh. “No no, it’s on me. Stupid nerves again.”

Keith kneels down next to him and Lance’s heart picks up a little, giddy with Keith fussing over him.

Pidge, from the back of the training deck suddenly yells, “Booooo! Keep the boyfriend stuff in the bedroom! I paid for people beating each other with sticks!” Hunks voice is a little softer when he says, “We didn’t pay for anything.”

Lance guesses the plus to him being on the ground like this is that he gets to see Keith’s face go red at the boyfriend jab from Pidge. They aren’t dating. Lance has no idea where Pidge got that ridiculous notion from but it suddenly popped up three days ago at dinner and Lance hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

Lance rolls his eyes anyway, yelling back, “Not boyfriends! Rivals! How about you come over here and let me take your leg away and then have Keith kick your ass? See how you like it.”

Keith offhandedly says, with excitement in his voice, “So you admit I was winning.”

“Uh! No!” He counters quickly, “I was just going easy on you” Fuck he has to pick up on his own stupid folly, Damn you Pidge.

Lance is grateful for Shiro suddenly walking back into the room because he draws Keith’s attention away from him, thus ending the conversation.

Shiro is followed by Coran and oh hell yes, water pouches. Keith sits himself down where he was kneeling by Lance and the rest of the group joins them on the floor.

Lance can suffer in relative peace now that Coran is talking about improvement or something along those lines. He isn’t too focused on the words being said.

He takes the water pouch when it’s offered and sips from the straw, humming happily at the icy cold water. It helps take his mind off the cramping burn in the foot of his prosthetic.

He can feel his pulse throb in the metal toes and it gives off the sensation of someone squeezing too hard.

The phantom pains aren’t as bad anymore now that Lance has had a week to become numb to them as well as have Allura give him some kind of medication. But every now and then they get as bad as they used to.

For some reason, when Keith glances at Lance and notices him spacing out he doesn’t ask if he’s alright right away. He waits until Lance breathes in and out to steady himself. Keith says nothing as he nudges a hand back, firm and grounding on Lance’s ankle.

The real pressure snaps Lance’s focus back onto his left side, Keith’s hand is unnaturally hot, and just like that the pains are gone.

His head whips up, staring in disbelief at the back of Keith’s dumb mullet. He can see the tops of Keith’s ears are a little pink but Keith is just sipping at his water and looking up at Coran as he talks about their next group bonding session.

Lance wants to lean down and tangle his fingers with Keith’s. He wants to tell Keith how easy it is to be accepting of losing his leg with him always being there. But he can’t. Those words always get caught up in his throat and die out.   

* * *

 

“Concentrate on your breathing. Focus on inhaling as a group and exhaling as a group. Good. Good.”

Lance thinks that if Coran didn’t narrate their group bonding sessions, they would actually get things done quicker. Coran’s words always do the opposite of the intended effect.

His mind wanders. The mentally projected Voltron in front of them crackles and fizzles away.  

“Lance.” Shiro opens his eyes and looks at him. Lance is ready to fall onto the floor and scream. He doesn’t wanna do this anymore.

All of the paladins have had trouble concentrating when they’re like this. And Lance can sympathize with Pidge when they first got here.

It feels incredibly….intimate, to have four other people gain full access to every thought in your head. Not that Lance has problems with intimacy. Growing up in a big family, it was constant.

And now this is his family. So the intimacy thing isn’t the problem.

It’s the fact that he can feel all of his teammates’ caution about him. They aren’t scared of him, but they aren’t as relaxed around him as they used to be. He isn’t some time bomb ready to go off.

The hesitant thoughts of, ‘He isn’t acting the way he’s supposed to’ and ‘Shouldn’t he be grieving?’ make Lance irritated. Enough that he pulls the sensors off his head and drop them in his lap as he flops onto his back.

It’s not that he isn’t grieving, he is, it’s that he doesn't let anyone know. It would only be troublesome to have everyone trying to handle it. Lance doesn’t want to be a burden.

Even then, it isn’t like he’s not getting help. Blue is a great therapist. She only purrs and rumbles at him. Blue doesn’t try and make things better when he cries and screams.

“I’ve had enough.” Lance stares at the ceiling, “This won’t work if everyone won’t concentrate.”

“We are concentrating.”

“Yeah, on me. Ugh, you know what,” Lance rolls over and stands up, brushing himself off and straightening his jacket. “I’m done for today. I’m going back to my room.”

He can hear his name being called as he walks out of the training deck. He really doesn’t care.

Lance’s pace picks up when he hears footsteps behind him. He knows it’s Keith. He’s practically his shadow at this point.

“I’m not up for it today, Keith. Leave me alone.”

“Wow,” Hunk counters, stepping in next to Lance and keeping up with him. “I really see where our friendship lies here.”

Shocking, but not overly so. Lance doesn’t slow down. He ducks his head and keeps going. Hunk isn’t that persistent and hard-headed at times. Not like Keith.

“Can you slow down? Where are you even going? I know it isn’t your room because that’s in the opposite direction, dude.”

Lance stands corrected, Hunk can be just as stubborn as Keith. He huffs, not too keen on responding to Hunk. That seems to be fine with the other, Hunk doesn’t keep talking and he doesn’t ask anymore questions. Just follows.

When Lance gets into his lion’s hangar, Blue’s eyes flash for a moment, an audible purr starting to rumble around the room. Hunk may or may not have flinched.

Lance wants to sprint across the room and climb into the cockpit of his lion but he can’t. He wouldn’t leave Hunk out here by himself. Even if he wanted to be alone. So Lance settles with sitting down in front of one of Blue’s big paws, back leaning against it.

The warm and welcoming energy that floods into him at the contact makes his eyes slip shut and head fall back. He feels safe wrapped up in Blue’s energy. He peeks an eye open at the cautious footsteps and watches Hunk sit down in front of him.

He must have closed his eyes and dozed off because when he opens his eyes again Hunk has moved to sit next to him and Lance has fallen over onto his shoulder. He wipes the drool off his cheek.

Hunk has his head propped against Blue’s paw. His orange headband lays loosely over thick fingers in his own lap. Lance smiles. He feels like he’s twelve years old again, skipping classes to go to the beach with Hunk and sit out in the sand and nap against each other.

He and Hunk had joined a soccer team that lasted a year and a half before both of their participation withdrew. Their coach had given Hunk a ribbon to tie his hair back with one day and Lance had stolen it and brandished the thick fabric over his forehead. Hunk thought it was the coolest thing ever, and the habit picked up.

Lance’s eyes fall down to his leg, the metal hidden under his pants. Would he be able to play the same? He can run and jump and kick, yeah, but would he be able to play with a group of people? Would they accept him? Would they tell him he has an unfair advantage because of his robotic prosthesis?

Stupid thinking, he berates himself, they won’t be going back to earth anytime soon. And there are no spaces in the castle to play soccer anyway.

Hunk clears his throat, startling Lance out of his thoughts. “I was going to sit here and watch the floor be interesting with you but I accidentally fell asleep.”

“I guess I’ll forgive you.” Lance says, smiling. “You missed it though, the floor stayed exactly the same. It was incredible.”

Hunk shakes his hair out a little, fixing it into place before he pulls the orange headband around it. “You fell asleep first.”

“You weren’t bombarding me with questions so I didn’t think it was important to stay conscious.” Lance is still a little concerned with when he actually fell asleep. Maybe it was Blue, she’s notorious for messing with his brain stuff when he’s tired and stressed, like an old lady. Lance gets a warning growl and mental smack, Lance has to fight down his cheeky smile.

“You weren’t looking really good. I didn’t want to upset you further.” Hunk says with a finality and their playful back and forth banter is sliced through with seriousness. Lance doesn’t like it. He wants Hunk to be silly with him, to act like they had before. His knee bumps into Hunk’s.

“I’m doing fine. Really. I don’t want you worrying about me, about things that don’t matter.”

“You’re worth worrying about. You don’t have to go through this alone, even if you think you do.” Hunk’s fingers find his shoulder and Lance’s shoulders relax, he hadn’t even noticed they had tensed.

Lance really does love Hunk for everything he does. He’s one of the friends Lance didn’t have to struggle to keep. Lance never had to hold himself back or hide his personality around Hunk. Despite being boisterous and annoying Hunk stayed by Lance’s side. When that revelation was brought into the light he latched onto his friendship with Hunk and never let go.

Lance’s eyes water and he leans into Hunk. He’s so grateful for his best friend but he hates how often he’s been crying these past few days. It makes no difference to Hunk though, who just wraps his arms around Lance and squeezes. Oh, he always gave the best hugs.

Blue gives Lance a mental nudge like a hug around the two paladins, something so safe feeling it makes the burning tears slip out.

“Remember when that storm came and washed away our class’ garden?” Hunk suddenly says out of left field, gentle and far away in Lance’s shoulder. He nods.

Lance had cried for a week because his and Hunk’s tomatoes and lima beans had gotten completely flooded and died. Now that he thinks about it, it was such a small thing to cry about but Lance thought the world was so cruel to do that.

He remembered sitting on the school steps that day, bookbags the size of their little bodies providing a bit of shade in the sun, fingers clasped together while they waited for their mothers to come pick them up from school.

“You remember what your sister told you?” Lance isn’t sure where Hunk was going for this. He can’t remember words spoken that day, he was too young and inattentive. He shakes his head.

“She said it’s okay to cry about things that make you upset. If other people think it doesn’t matter, but you think differently, then it’s okay to be sad.” Hunk’s fingers rub little circles on Lance’s shoulders and back. “It matters if you’re upset about it.”

Lance wonders when Hunk got to be so perfect. It kinda isn’t fair. It also isn’t fair that Hunk can make Lance feel better with using their drowned tomatoes and lima beans as a point of reference.

“Thanks, Hunk.” Is all he can manage without breaking down into sobs. He’s done crying for the rest of his life, ugh.

The two sit there, chat about their childhood while laughing whenever Blue decides to purr or rumble similarly to a laugh at a dumb thing. It’s nice. It’s grounding. It makes Lance think about things he really never thought about before.

Like how he wants closure, even if he thought he already got it.

Like how he wants to go back to Vymrn.

Like how he’s undeniably head over heels for Keith.

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, this chapter was simultaneously my favorite and most hated chapter to write.  
> Hold onto your horses yall, the next chapter is the last chapter. I wanna say thank you one hundred times over to EVERYONE who's read this and supported me. Your comments always make my entire day.  
> find me on tumblr: shipperbitch.tumblr.com


	5. Closure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Livin' on a prayer  
> We've gotta hold on ready or not  
> You live for the fight when it's all that you've got"  
> -Bon Jovi, Livin' on a Prayer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, this fanfic has absolutely nothing to do with Bon Jovi :)

They finally get a mission after another month of sitting on their asses in the castle.

Lance has been begging Allura to find something for them to do. He threatened to go cause chaos on a planet on his own if something wasn’t done.

So reluctantly, Allura hones them in on a distress beacon coming from Vymrn. Immediately everyone is against it. All except Lance.

He actually _wants_ to go back to the planet. He wants to show the Vymrnians that even though they messed up once, it doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be cast out and ignored when in danger.

Everyone stares at him after he’s said this. He feels nervousness curl in his chest and he ignores it as he lifts his chin proudly, dares anyone to tell him no again. He looks everyone in the eyes. He isn’t going to back down from this.

Allura sighs and agrees, they shouldn’t leave the planet just because of a mistake in the past. As paladins of Voltron, they have a duty.

This sets the rest of the paladins other than Lance into a shouting match. Four against one and quickly Coran goes to Allura’s side to counter the others.

Lance can’t believe he’s stuck on a flying alien ship with these idiots.

“What if this time we just not split up?” He suggests with a hand on his hip, like it’s the most obvious thing (because it is, _duh_ ) and all eyes turn to him.

He scratches at the nape of his neck, now. Oh man. He’s never been good with persuasive speaking.

“Last time I got hurt because we all split up. It makes things finish faster if we split up, yeah, but if we just form Voltron and take care of all the Galra one at a time then…”

He delves into silence, really unsure what his pitch to the team is here. He sees Shiro’s jaw tick and his shoulders straighten. Lance prepares to be shot down.

“You’re not incapable of protecting yourself, Lance. You’re a good pilot and a better marksman. I’m not worried about you getting hurt again, I’m worried about this being another trap. But,” Shiro looks guilty as he continues, “You’re right. We shouldn’t leave the planet to the Galra.”

Hunk looks at Shiro like he’s insane. “Last time we went to this planet Lance came back almost dying. He _actually_ died for a minute there! They could think we’re stupid enough to come back. We know the Galra are going to be waiting there for us!”

“We know they’re going to be there. We can prepare for the worst.” Keith chimes in, he’s looking at Lance skeptically, like he isn’t too sure about his own decision to take his side.

“But we won’t leave our lions this time.” He concludes, though it seems more directed towards Lance than the group as a whole.

“What about that weird attack that shut our lions down before? We still don’t know what that was nor what it did. I think we need to stay as far away from that weird planet for Lance’s safety and our lions.”

Lance rolls his eyes, of course Pidge would be on Hunk’s side. He loves his teammates from the Garrison, but they always seem to look too much into things, especially for each other.

In their defense, Lance would probably do the same for them. Hell, they went to classes together and did team bonding exercises waaay before Voltron made it cool.

“We shouldn’t have to think about this. We should just go and take care of it.” Lance turned to look at Allura, hoping that she would placate the rest of the team.

He knew they were going anyway. If both Allura and Shiro agreed on something, it was happening.

“We’re going. I want you in your armor and in your hangars in twenty minutes.” Allura glanced at Shiro. “Please stay for a moment, I wish to speak with you.”

Lance grinned and sing-songed “oooo someone’s in trouble” under his breath while he walked out the door (more like shoved out by Keith who told him to shut up), Hunk and Pidge following with upset grumbles.

* * *

Keith is practically vibrating in his pilot’s seat. He hasn’t been able to go fly around in Red since their last mission. It doesn’t help that Red is excited to do something, too. That only serves to ramp him up more, it gets his blood pumping.

He can feel it in the bond with everyone else, though: The paladins are ready to get out of the castle and fly around. They’ve been cooped up for too long, even though the Castle of Lions is massive and provides them with plenty to do.

Especially Lance. He has chomped at the bit to get out into space and kick ass. In his words, “If I can’t kick Keith’s ass then I need to go and kick someone else’s ass.”

Keith thought it was cute, how revved up Lance got in the training deck. Especially if Keith managed to catch the paladin off guard and knock him over. Lance would cry bully and Shiro would come running and save him like the dad he was.

That was the one thing Keith would change. It was selfish, but he wanted Lance to only call on him if he wanted help (granted that wouldn’t really be beneficial if Keith was the one harping on him). Keith wanted to shoo everyone away from Lance and have him all to himself, but they were rational young adults here. Keith could keep his possessiveness to himself.

As they fly away from the Castle of Lions, Blue zips ahead quickly before barreling into a few twists and loops. Lance’s whooping is loud and happy over the coms. Keith actually laughs. There isn’t a single bad feeling in the team’s mental bond as the five race off towards Vymrn.

* * *

Keith is completely sick and tired of the Galra. The lions have absolutely no time to form Voltron, ion cannons fire every time the five draw close to each other.

He shoots off a blast of fire that collides head on with a beam, Red staggers back from the force but quickly overcomes the push, melting a hole right through the attacking ship. Keith is satisfied with the pleased growl that emanates all around him.

He trusts the others to have his back while he points himself a little to the left and melts through another Galra ship, inside of his cockpit lighting up with the resulting explosions.

It’s the same wash rinse repeat battle. Shoot the ships shooting at you, fly off to the next one on the hot trail of an explosion, be a badass while defending space. Even though fighting and maneuvering requires incredible amounts of concentration, it gets boring.

“Guys! Trouble down below!” Lance’s voice crackles to life in Keith’s lion after a long moment of just destroying ships left and right. His eyes trail down to look at Vymrn for just a split second, seeing the blue lion descending by itself makes Keith feel like he’s going to puke.

“What are you _doing_!? We aren’t supposed to split up! _Lance!"_

Keith all but rips his controls out of the floor of Red as he plunges down after Lance. Keith can only think about Lance exiting his lion to save someone, getting hurt or worse. He won’t let that happen.

“Goddamnit, Lance!” He hears Hunk growl into their com line, and the rest of the lions start to file down to the planet one by one. It seems that Keith isn’t the only one keen on keeping Lance safe.

The Galra ships follow right after them, not bothering to stay up in the safety of microgravity.  _Only Lance_ , Keith thinks, _could be the leader of not only his angry teammates but bloodthirsty enemies to a distressed planet civilization_.

As they enter the atmosphere Keith notices that they seem to be descending into a maze of mountain ranges. He momentarily forget Lance and searches the ground for whatever trouble dragged them down here in the first place. There’s nothing but sparse trees and cracked orange dirt.

The lions duck into the towering mountains and _now_ Keith gets it.

“The Galra ships can’t chase us down here, they’re too big. We can form Voltron.” Lance supplies.

Keith is completely surprised, in a positive way of course, by the change of attitude. He’s surprised Lance had been thinking about using the mountains as cover. Since they were in space, all Keith thought about was battling in space and using the resources out there. Though why couldn’t Lance just _say_ they should go take cover in the mountains?

“You’re a genius, Lance!” Hunk says, full of pride.

“Obviously.” Lance replies, the Blue lion in front of the group slows down.

Keith watches the Galra ships above them, they aren’t firing their ion cannons. They stay right above the mountains though, hovering so close it looks as if the bottom of the hulls will scrape against the dry and delicate tips. They aren’t moving forward, just hovering.

Shiro takes his attention when he calls for them to form Voltron. Keith won’t have to worry about the Galra being shady anymore, especially not when the mental bond snaps together. The fight would be over quickly.

He was right, sort of. Lance’s plan worked, they were able to form Voltron and get back into space without being bombarded by the Galra. They were able to completely decimate the ships. It hardly took fifteen minutes to counter and defend and attack until there was only rubble and debris floating in odd directions.

“Well then,” Pidge said, “Now that that’s taken care of, we sh-- go --k on --rnians, ri--?”

Keith looked up at his viewscreen, pulling up the public com line. There was way too much static and the usual faces of his teammates were pixelated and lagging.

“Guys? What’s going on?” Keith looked out at the black space, stars innocently twinkling as if to say ‘don’t ask us’. They weren’t on Vymrn. Was this what had attacked them before?

A loud hiss of static blared from Lance’s com before Voltron lurched and the video feed and coms flickered away.

Alarms started going off in Keith’s head. Was it a Robeast? It had to be, what could cause Voltron to move like that?

Keith felt anxiety and confusion take over the mental bond with the rest of the paladins. It warped and became full of energy in the next second of feeling it out.

Weightlessness and butterflies filled his stomach and chest when the view of the stars blurred so fast they looked like fast lines. Voltron plummeted. Whatever was happening they were being dragged down onto Vymrn at a sickening speed.

Keith knew not to panic, he pulled up on his controls, sure the rest of the team was doing so as well, trying to stop their descent. It was useless.

If Keith wondered what it felt like to freefall back into a planet’s atmosphere and then slam into the ground, he didn’t wonder anymore. He wouldn’t need to wonder, he knew. He blacked out for a few seconds upon impact.

He couldn’t see anymore, the cockpit of Red dark and unresponsive. What an awful sense of deja vu. He decided that he could maybe lay there for a second and blink away the light spots in his eyes. He breathed out a moan. His _everything_ hurt.

Keith didn’t have to wait long before Red turned on with a soft whir, like she herself was taking in a sigh and moaning in pain. He could definitely sympathize. With the lights on, the view window clearing up, and his controls reprojecting, Lance’s voice filled the space.

“--ly think you guys need to get the hell up!!”

With a big huff of effort Keith pulled on the controls by his sides. Red creaked as she stood.

The blood that suddenly rushed vertically to his head and his feet made Keith want to throw up. A small health window to his left pulled information from his paladin suit, it showed him he was completely fine save for a few bruises, no concussion even if Keith would have swore up and down he had one.

Keith’s suspicions were confirmed when he looked out across the dusty plains and spotted the massive robeast standing away from the group of fallen lions. Of course, they couldn’t get any reprieve.

The robeast looked like a sort of bipedal rhino. It was a dark purple all over except for it’s horn being a faded green and the bright red coil of light coming out of it’s hands.

Whips, Keith realized as the robeast yanked one up and caught the black lion by the back leg and threw it into the air.

A blast of ice expanded from the back of it’s arms suddenly and it’s head turned over it’s shoulder. That attack pushed the rest of the team into action.

Thankfully, the black lion caught itself in the air, and swooped down to slam it’s jawblade into the side of the robeast’s head. The other four charge at the robeast, they won’t hesitate, not when their enemy has proven that it can completely render their lions useless.

The robeast has thick armor, not even Keith’s blast of fire from point blank does anything. The metal gets a little darker but that’s the extent of damage Keith can do before he’s flying away to get out of the way of a flailing whip.

Lance isn’t that lucky. Even though he’s stayed behind the robeast and attacked it’s blindspot, one of the whips coils around Blue’s middle and yanks her to the ground.

Keith listens to Lance curse over the com before he cuts off with a click. The little blue dot on his map goes out entirely, telling him that the blue lion isn’t anywhere close by despite Keith literally looking right at it.

Despite his worry he asks, “Are you guys seeing that? Blue is completely off the grid.”

“I think those whips have something to do with the power surges our lions are experiencing!” Hunk slams Yellow right into the shoulder of the robeast and it goes toppling forward, Blue dragging a scar into the dirt as she’s pulled.

“Except my lion didn’t go dark when it got me.” Shiro adds in.

“We need to form Voltron.” Keith is concerned with getting Blue and Lance away from the robeast as it gets up and smashes it’s whips on the ground. Everyone else has the same idea, they can't form Voltron without Lance, they have to get him to be released first.

The robeast smashes Blue against the ground once more before she’s flung into the air and Keith thinks maybe this is their break here. He waits for Blue to turn back on, to activate her thrusters and for them to fly up and form Voltron.

Blue just keeps falling, eyes dark. _Come on_ , Keith urges. He’s ready to fly into action and meet the blue lion to prevent it from slamming into the ground but the yellow of her eyes suddenly flicker on and they’re greeted with Lance yelling.

Keith can’t understand him, since he doesn’t speak spanish, but he sounds enraged. The tail of the blue lion fires in unison with her mouth blaster and Lance snarls something. Keith is not fond at all of the chill that runs down his spine because Lance sounds _deadly_ speaking the way he is.

Hunk is the interrupter here, telling Lance (Keith assumes that’s what he’s saying) to take a second and collect himself and that they need to form Voltron.

“Let’s get this over with already.” Lance finally says in a language Keith understands, although heavily accented. The robeast is frozen from it’s feet to it’s chest in a thick block of ice. It’s working it’s way out of it very slowly.

They all fly up away from the robeast to make sure they aren’t attacked by surprise. They form Voltron without any troubles though, other than the sudden sense of rage plugged into Keith’s brain. He knows it’s from Lance’s end of the connection.

Voltron lands just as the beast snaps itself out of the ice and coils its whips up. Unfortunately for the monster, the fight doesn’t last long after Keith turns his bayard into his lion.

Voltron makes use of the sword and shield combo and finds the robeast’s weakness quickly. It always protects its head, the horn. After that’s figured out, it’s almost too easy to get the monster on the defensive and finally, on the ground where Voltron defeats it.

Unlike other robeasts they have fought before, this one doesn’t seem to want to go without a fight. It grabs Voltron by the legs and squeezes with all it’s might. Keith is concerned when he hears Hunk and Lance shouting.

Voltron slams the sword down onto the horn and it shatters like glass onto the ground and the eyes of the robeast dull before it goes limp.

“Hunk. Lance. Are you two alright?” Shiro checks on them before they split apart, it’s always easier to get a gauge on everyone while still together as Voltron. Both Hunk and Lance reassure Shiro they’re perfectly fine.

When they break apart, and Keith feels the whisper of emotions from his teammates scurry away to the back of his mind, he realizes that Lance is really not okay. As per usual, he got the most damage dealt on this mission.

It seems that Blue isn’t okay either. She stumbles in the air before wobbily lowering to the ground and laying down. Her mouth opens and out stumbles Lance. Keith takes a precautionary glance at the sky, to make sure there aren’t any lingering Galra and curses when a small fleet begins its descent. Pidge calls for Lance to get up off the ground and there isn’t any response. The paladins have done this dance once too many times.

“You three go take care of those damn ships! I got Lance!” Yellow suddenly turns from the group in the air and dives down to the ground. That seems to be that as Shiro, Pidge, and Keith fly up to meet the Galra ships. Keith has said it before and he’ll say it again, he is completely sick and tired of the Galra.

 

It takes the three of them longer than necessary to get rid of a measly fleet.  It comes to show how vital Hunk and Lance are to their dynamic.

Shiro and Keith are great at the offensive but they typically get into a zone which leaves them vulnerable to attacks from the back. They don’t do well with defending.

Pidge is in a neutral zone. She’s good at attacking and at defending but she isn’t like Hunk. Green is small and doesn’t hold up against barrages of shots like Yellow. But damn if Pidge can’t completely tear into a Galra ship.

They take care of the fleet, of course, but it’s a struggle. Keith feels like they’ve been reverted to their amateur selves. Like they’re taking care of this situation like they would have when they first started to learn how to fight _with_ their lions as a team instead of _using_ them as weapons.

Flashbacks of billowing fire and smoke rising from the planet of Vymrn haunt him as he turns his lion back to the planet. There is no fire and there is no smoke. No bloody Blue and no dying Lance. He can see the yellow and blue lions sitting down on the surface.

“We’re done up here. How’s Lance?” Pidge beats Keith to the questioning, they don’t need to worry about Blue because she’s got no problem with taking a beating. She takes after Lance. Or...does Lance take after Blue? Keith frowns to himself, thinking. The trio start their descent.

“Well, right after you guys left the ground started to shake and pull apart. I had to carry Blue since she isn’t doing that great. I think the monster really did a number on her.”

Hunk pauses for a moment, hushed and hurried spanish under his breath before continuing, “Lance is completely fine, by the way. He keeps singing that fork in the garbage disposal meme and I’m ready to get away from him. Please save me.”

Pidge’s laugh over the com is so loud it startles Keith. He’s so confused. So so confused. What the hell is the fork in the garbage disposal? Why is that funny? That’s dangerous. Utensils aren’t supposed to go into garbage disposals.

“Why isn’t he wearing his helmet?” The question is a quick turn around from Shiro, he sounds tense. Hunk says, “Uuhh, well.”

“Is he in his lion?” Shiro asks, not letting Hunk have any slack, Keith has no idea where this came from. Hunk again responds simply, “No.”

“Get him in his lion! Allura just informed me--” Shiro’s urgent voice cuts out after being overpowered by a low buzzing.

Keith had heard it before when they had all come here before. He barely gets to think about what happened before he’s plummeting. His cabin goes dark for the second time this mission and Keith mutters curses while wiggling the controls.

“No no no no. Not again.” He looks up, uses his helmet’s light to let him see as he kicks the flat grey metal in front of his seat. “Don’t do this now!”

His lion lurches again, that same feeling, and Keith can’t help it as his mind shrinks back to that day. He can hear tree branches snapping around him as Red crash lands from a kick. He’s jolted around in his seat and slammed up onto the control panel.

It picks up speed. He meets up with the other lions by the cliff, he flies off to fight the Galra ships with Hunk and Shiro, he watches Blue streak across the battlefield and now Keith recognizes the blur of red on her white metal. No. _No_.

Keith squeezes his eyes shut tightly and shakes his head, counting his breathing up to five and then letting it out. He opens his eyes. The cabin of Red is lit up, the view window shows him the shaking ground of Vymrn, cracks rippling over the surface and chunks of rock colliding and scattering. His heart is racing. His head is pounding. His hands hurt. Keith can taste blood from his lips.

Red is hovering just over the surface of Vymrn, over a deep fault line that Keith can look down into. There seems to be absolutely no bottom to it.

He’s about to fly off when something glittering catches his attention. He squints down into the gash and suddenly shoves his controls forward. “Pidge!”

“No yelling. Shhh. Shh.” He hears her say through crackles and blips in the com line. He feels uneasy invading the planet like this, like without any warning the two sides of rock would snap shut and crush both he and Pidge.

“What’s wrong with your lion? Are you okay?” He asks, despite her aversion to his talking. Pidge shhes him again. Keith has to sit through a minute of excruciating silence before Pidge answers him, and it isn’t even one he’s looking for.

“There’s something living under the surface of the planet.” Keith wants to groan. He isn’t ready to talk about this. He wants to know if Pidge is okay. As if sensing his anxiousness Pidge continues, “Nothing is wrong with my lion, I flew in here. And I’m fine. Just a little headache.”

“You flew in here? Or fell?” He asks.

“I flew in here, I just told you. I figured out what’s attacking us up there. What’s making our lions go dark.” Oh, Keith is interested now. He’s still worried about them staying inside the fault  but it can be overlooked. “Can we stop it?”

“Nope,” Pidge says matter of factly, almost happy, “It’s the planet’s magnetic poles. They’re moving.”

Keith can remember something about Earth's magnetic poles from when he was in the Garrison, learning about space and stuff like that. But he isn’t sure where Pidge is going with this.

“You know how the North Pole on Earth isn’t really right at the north pole, like it’s in Alaska some place?” Keith stays silent and lets Pidge keep going. He hopes she makes it Lance worthy so she doesn’t talk too much. “The Earth isn’t on a straight up and down axis, right?” she urges.

“Right” He says. Ugh, he may as well be in a classroom right now. “What’s your point Pidge?”

“This planet is the same way, its north and south poles are constantly wobbling around. We’re just getting caught in the magnetic field. It isn’t any alien trying to shoot us down, Keith, it’s the planet.”

Keith never paid one hundred percent attention in classes about geomagnetism because they were just boring classes, but he’s pretty sure Pidge is talking out of her ass. Only because their lions are such an advanced piece of tech, or sentience, that simple magnetic fields shouldn’t mess their lions up as bad as this. Then again, this isn’t Earth, the magnetic fields could be different he supposes.

“Then we can get the hell out of here, right? Let’s just go back home and call it a mission well done?” Keith angles Red back up to the top of the fault they’re in, they’ve sunk he notices with dread.

“Someone’s eager to go home and see his booooyfriend~.” Pidge teases. He can hear that god damned smirk. Pidge’s smirk is worse than Lance’s in Keith’s opinion. She’s such a shit. He loves her cryptid ass.

“He is _not_ my boyfriend, Pidge. Let that go. I’m not even interested in Lance. He’s so annoying.”

“But so pretty, right?” And Keith, before he can catch himself, goes firmly, “Yeah.” then, “Wait. _No_. Fuck you, Pidge!” He shouts at her as they fly out of the fault line.

* * *

Keith really wishes that he could have kept his good mood. Pidge calmed down his panicked nerves but now, looking at the blue lion totally out of commision, it’s back double time. Blue is laid out on her side, legs curled under her, near a few dirt huts.

He can’t manage to ask where Lance is, afraid of the answer. He hopes that just because of the distance, Blue looks worse than she really is.

He can see Hunk and Shiro talking outside of their lions on the ground with a small group of Vymrnians. Lance is nowhere to be seen. That only serves to make his stomach churn with acid.

Keith and Pidge leave their lions seated with the others and Keith is on the ground.

A Vymrnian comes up to him and he holds his shoulders back, straightens his back to seem taller. The Vymrnian only greets him with kindness and a smile, one of its hands outstretched. Keith shakes it’s hand with a firm grip. It’s like shaking hands with an unforgiving statue.

His eyes scan for Lance and he still doesn’t see him. His brain doesn’t like that information, neither does his heart.

It makes Keith dizzy how quickly they’re celebrating their win against the Galra. He says thank yous and your welcomes to everyone who comes up to him. He smiles and takes offered cups of dirty looking water. Shiro is drinking it so he assumes it’s alright. It tastes like ass.

Keith feels so wrong without Lance around and he manages to shuffle his way over to Hunk after talking to a family of Vymrnians.

“Hey, where’s Lance. I don’t see him around?” Keith tries to hide his worry, he doesn’t want to look concerned. God, no.

“He went to go take care of something, said he’ll be right back. A few of the Vymrnians went with him so he’ll be fine.” Hunk clasps a hand on Keith’s back and he lets out a grunt when the air is coughed out of him. He has no choice but to nod and save his inquiry of _Where?_ He has no choice but to stew in his worry and anxiousness.

* * *

Lance is thankful for the Vymrnians that had escorted him. He’s more thankful that they understand his desire to be by himself. He sits down under a small hut and looks out at the empty expanse of dirt. He takes a deep breath and sighs.

He can picture himself running and the Galra chasing. The gun pointed at his leg fired and sends him sprawling forwards into the ground but it doesn’t deter him from immediately rolling onto his back and shooting straight through the head of the Galra pouncing on him.

Lance can see the entire thing unfold from where he’s sitting, the Galra holding him down and damaging his leg so he wouldn’t have any chance of escape after it. The pain and shock had him passing out after the sixth or seventh strike, he really hadn’t been counting.

Lance closes his eyes, lets his head thump softly back on the dirt wall. He stares at the ceiling before he flexes his toes and then his feet.

Lance looks down at his armored foot and does it again. He smiles sadly and looks back out to the plains. They aren’t where the hellish memory happened but it looks the same anyway.

He’s glad he can cry about it properly, where no one can hear him and no one can comfort him but himself.  He’s glad he can mourn the Galra that he killed without anyone judging him here. They might have been for an evil cause, but in Lance’s mind they were still lives. Lives that Lance undoubtedly took away.

Lance puts his helmet back on after he stands up and brushes his armor off. Unlike the many times he cried his heart out, now he feels uplifted and much better. Refreshed.

He remembers where to go to get back to the group. It helps that he can see the four lions sitting down. It feels like they’re watching him from way over here, even though their heads are angled down.

He rounds a dirt hut and sees the paladins surrounded by Vymrnians, laughing and drinking. It’s nice. Up until Keith sees him.

Lance smiles and waves, because he feels like it. Keith’s face warps through so many different emotions Lance can’t decipher it and suddenly he’s speed walking across the distance. Oh god. Oh god!

Lance’s arm falls back to his side and he slows down. Keith looks fucking pissed. Lance is afraid he’s going to get hit or maybe worse. Keith is moving so fast what the hell did Lance even do he’s an innocent man.

When Keith gets into Lance’s space, Lance tries to open his mouth and save himself, maybe apologize or ask what’s wrong.

Keith’s mouth is suddenly on his own and every single thought gets shaken around and erased like some angry child throttling an etch-a-sketch.

Lance has to stumble back a step because of how hard Keith has slammed into him and grabbed his face. He can’t even grunt from the impact because Keith is kissing him. Keith is _kissing_ him.

What is _happening_?

Somewhere in the distance Pidge is hollering and Lance can finally put his mental ducks in a row enough to blush. Keith pulls back from Lance and oh hey, twinsies. They’re both blushing. Lance thinks about how cute Keith looks, red lips and pink cheeks and downcast eyes.

Lance swallows, his throat is so dry. “Uhhhh.” Is all he can manage.

Keith seems to pick up the slack here, if only he could be so kind as to pick up Lance’s jaw. “If you go running off after a mission again I’m going to punch you.” There isn’t any heat behind the words but Lance will humor Keith here for a second and pretend that was a threat.

Lance just nods dumbly and Keith huffs, “Good” before turning on his heel and walking back to the group. Shiro and Pidge are laughing and shoving at him. Lance makes eye contact with Hunk and mouths, _What the fuck?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sighs dreamily.  
> Puts chin in hand, stares at Keith and Lance.  
> scream at me on tumblr: shipperbitch.tumblr.com  
> (this chapter is such a mess, hope u liked it lmaO)


	6. End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance talk about their feelings and get all mushy and shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy. Shit.  
> I am, first of all, so sorry about the wait. College has been hectic but it's finally winding down, sort of. I wanted to get this typed out and finished before finals started and inevitably sucked the soul out of me.  
> Because of this the chapter was ~~a little~~ rushed and so it's not only short but weird and choppy to me. I'm kind of bad with multichaptered works! I won't lie, I lost the motivation for this fanfic;;; So sorry! I hope you guys enjoy though!

Lance would like someone to answer his questions. More specifically, the big question of: Did that really just fucking happen?

He can’t help but run his fingertips over his lips, imagining the hard press of Keith’s. Warm and fierce. His brain kicked into overdrive when it had happened; Too fast, really. Everything stuttered out in a pathetic spark in that moment, leaving Keith there in its wake. It was... intense, to say the least.

He feels his legs wobble slightly as he inhales and sighs, to get rid of the butterflies in his stomach. He ends up sitting down on his bed with a heavy grunt. His face feels hot, he can feel the phantom pressure of Keith kissing him, Keith’s hands on his face.

His room is a complete mess of his paladin armor strewn about carelessly. His prosthetic would have joined the mess if he had been frustrated enough to yank it out and throw it. Though that seemed to be too over the top, too dramatic. He feels like he deserves to be dramatic though, Keith had kissed him for fucks sake.

Lance scrubs his hands over his face and groans into them, flopping back onto his bed. As he stares up at the ceiling he bites his bottom lip, tongue sliding along it in his mouth gently. Would Keith mind kissing him again? Maybe? What would that even be like?

Lance bets Keith would be a shit kisser, yeah. He lived in that shack for a long time, he spent all of his time in the Garrison studying or practicing. Keith didn’t seem like the kind of person to know how to kiss. Or do anything in a relationship. Man, what a thought. What would a relationship with Keith be like?

Lance groans again, loud, and rolls over onto his side, yanking his pillow to yell into. He hates how crazy his heart is beating. He hates how warm he feels. He especially hates how easily he can just forget about the mission they just came from. It was important, sort of.

They had flown back with silence in the com line from Keith and Lance while the others chattered happily with Pidge about her findings on the planet’s strange magnetic fields or poles, Lance honestly didn’t care. When they arrived back at the Castle, Lance immediately took off, not ready to face the others so soon. And that’s how he got here, heart racing, face hot, and chest tight.

He’s worried he’s going to suddenly hear a knock on his door, that it’ll be Keith saying something like he regrets kissing Lance. Or maybe he would do something worse….like try and kiss him again.

Lance doesn’t think he’d really stop the red paladin if he did that. He would invite Keith in, drag him over to his bed, kiss him until they were both breathless and red-lipped. His wands would wander....

He huffs as he shakes his head and rolls over again in bed. It’s gonna be such a long night, he thought with dread. But eventually, he does fall asleep, thoughts of Keith in the back of his mind.

* * *

When he wakes up it’s to the sound of knocking on his door and he panics. Oh fuck, it’s Keith. They’re going to totally play out Lance’s fantasy from earlier, his sleepy brain helpfully points out.

He sits up and scrambles out of bed, fixing his hair, licking his lips with nerves before pressing the panel next to the door. It swishes open and Lance feels a little dumb.

“Hunk.” He breathes, not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved.

“You missed dinner.” Hunk says, eyes judgmental and curious as he looks Lance over. It makes him squirm, because he knows his best friend can peer into him and read him like a book.

“Uh,” He starts with, stepping back and rummaging for clothes to put on after he pulls his bodysuit off, “Yeah, I wasn’t all that hungry. Too jittery from post-mission nerves. Y’know?”

“I know you didn’t want to see Keith.” Hunk supplies, the door sliding shut behind him. He leans back on the wall, arms crossed. He idly watches Lance in order to have something to do, to gauge Lance’s reaction. From the way Lance just about drops his shirt and his shoulders tense up, he hit the nail right on the head.

“Why did you have to bring him into this? What happened to just us talking?” Lance accuses, slipping his shirt on over his head.

Hunk shrugs, “Well you can’t run away from him forever. He’s kind of freaking out since he hasn’t seen you since the kiss and-”

Lance suddenly jumps over to Hunk, one pants leg on and the other dangling as he hobbles. “No no no! We are not talking about that! Didn’t happen!”

“You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.” Hunk sighs. Lance levels him with a look and says, “Watch me”

“That isn’t fair to Keith.”

“Not fair to Keith?! _He_ kissed _me_! That isn’t fair!”

“You need to talk with this about Keith, not me.”

Lance doesn’t answer him, huffing and pushing his feet into socks. It’s amazing how he can make things look so aggressive, Hunk thinks. His next thought is: striped socks are quite possibly the most ugliest things to grace the clothing industry.

“Lance. Seriously. You need to talk to him.” He urges.

Lance finally sighs, stands up, and slips on his shoes. He’s mumbling to himself, obviously mocking Hunk. When he goes to say something again, Lance cuts him off on the inhale.

“Fine! Fine! I’ll go and talk to Keith sometime today. I promise.” He adds a dismissive wave of his hand that tells Hunk that Lance will procrastinate until the last minute.

“You should do it now. Since Keith is waiting for you in the training room.”

“What? Why?” Lance turns his head up, paused in fixing his hair.

“Because I told him I was going to come get you. And that you would be seeings him right after.”

“Hunk!” Lance whines, voice high and annoying yet still cute in that way that only Lance can pull off.

Hunk expected this, knows that Lance would be hard-headed about talking to Keith. It’s a good thing Hunk is just as stubborn. He presses the panel behind him and opens the door up, making a motion for Lance to go.

Lance sighs, heavy and over-dramatic as he slinks out of the room, giving Hunk a combination of puppy eyes and a glare. If he wasn’t pouting Hunk would probably ignore him completely.

“Break a leg!” He says jokingly, smiling as Lance goes down the hall, smiling even wider when Lance responds with a dry, “Ha ha. Yeah sure thing, Hunk.” 

* * *

 

Keith doesn’t panic. Keith doesn’t even get nervous, nope. Not even when he did something so reckless as kiss Lance. Holy hell. What he had done hadn’t yet settled in during the party the Vymrnians had held. When the Castle of Lions landed on the planet and they loaded their lions on, it still had not registered. Only when Hunk told Keith he was going to talk to Lance did he finally think, Oh. Right. I kissed Lance.

If he was going to be totally honest, he didn’t remember much other than being so overwhelmed with worry and anger that Lance had disappeared. He remembered kissing Lance, yes, but it seemed so insignificant to the crazy stunt Lance had pulled.

Keith is pulled from his increasingly destructive thought processes when the training room door slides open and Lance walks in. He looks like he does just about every other day, same baseball tee, same jacket, same jeans, same high-tops. But Keith can only look at him in a new light now. He’s the same and yet he isn’t anymore.

Lance is nervous, that is very much obvious in the way he walks closer to Keith. In spite of the squared shoulders and the nonchalant hands in his pockets once Keith stares at Lance, fixes him with a look in the eyes, Lance slips back into himself and stops a few steps away.

“So we should talk, says Hunk.”

“That guy’s got good ideas.” Keith agrees, conversationally and trying hard to not let this be awkward.

“As he does a majority of the time, and much to my chagrin”

Keith hums, another reply to Lance but Lance doesn’t keep talking. He waits, and so does Keith. And now it is silent. Crap, awkward, like Keith didn’t want it to be. He looks back at Lance, watches his look around the room and rock on his feet before taking a deep breath.

“I don’t want you to...regret...kissing me. It- I didn’t not enjoy it. Well... I mean, it was surprising, obviously. I didn’t expect you to kiss me then. But! I don’t really go around expecting you to kiss me all the time anyway, because y’know we… You don’t seem to like me like that but maybe you do? I don’t know why you’d kiss me otherwise? I mean! You can totally kiss me whenever you want that’s like, your choice. It doesn’t have to mean anything. I’m not trying to put labels on things that aren't significant. Fuck, not that you kissing me isn’t significant. Because it is. But if you don’t want it to be then it doesn't have to be.”

Lance stops in his babbling, cheeks already flushed and he’s much closer to Keith now. They’re standing in front of each other but Lance is staring at his feet, fingers twisting together and releasing, patting his thighs and then rubbing his jeans. He’s eager. Nervous, but eager. Keith smiles.

“It’s hard to follow you when you’re not even thinking about the words coming out of your mouth.” Keith says, finding that he wants to laugh at the sudden way Lance looks up at him, eyes wide and looking ready to defend himself, “Granted that you do that a majority of the time you talk.”

“Hey-”

“I’m not bothered by it, Lance. The kissing, and the talking too. It’s okay.”

Lance stops then, exhaling. He stares at Keith, it seems that he too is looking at Keith in a different light. Something has definitely changed between them, but Keith isn’t really sure if he’s ready to explore that yet. Lance’s eyes flicker down to Keith’s mouth and suddenly his throat is dry.

“Then… you wouldn’t care if I kissed you?”

“I would care.” Keith states, voice stern. He sees Lance tense up, that nervousness is back again and Keith steps into Lance’s space before the other can turn tail and run away from him. He slips a hand behind Lance, over his back. His gloves only allow his fingertips to feel the fabric of Lance’s jacket but it’s enough.

“I would care.” He repeats, dragging Lance in closer and reaching up with his other hand to kiss him. There’s not spark of emotion like there was on the battlefield and there isn’t any weird flip that his heart makes like he thought it would. The kiss feels natural, even more so when Lance hums and sighs and gets his arms around Keith.

They stand there in the training room, sharing breath and fleeting kisses between mumbled confessions. They stand there with fingertips caressing and smiles pressed into skin until Pidge barks into the training room coms for them to go get a room. It causes the two to flinch and shoot away from each other before Pidge’s laughter makes Lance grab Keith’s hand and yank him away.

The laughter forcing its way out of his mouth as he stumbles after a red-eared Lance is loud and bounces off the walls, for now he doesn’t care. All he cares about is Lance’s fingers laced with his own and the mutual feelings between them.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the much much further future~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is years in the future from Chapter 6.

Keith wants to cry when the alarms go off. It’s too early. He just went to bed thirty minutes ago. Why would Allura do this to him? He shoves his face into his pillow and groans. It’s cut off into a wheeze when weight slides over his back. He’s not only going to kick Allura’s ass, but Lance’s. 

Lance is quiet when he pads around the room, something that had initially surprised Keith the first few mornings they woke up together. He turns his head, peeking an eye open against the pillow to watch Lance get dressed. 

The black, skintight flightsuit slips on over his back, hiding away pretty brown skin mottled with bites and red lines. It distracts Keith enough that he doesn’t see his own flightsuit tossed in his face. 

“We’re going to get yelled at if you don’t get up now.” 

Keith groans, again, and with a heavy sigh and much (see: tremendous amount) effort, swings his legs off the bed and stands up. He’s halfway into his flightsuit when Lance is finishing up the straps on his armor. 

Keith is half assed in tugging his chestplate on because Lance is scurrying out of their room without kissing him and Keith’s teeth grind together in irritation. That’s enough motivation for him to run out of the room himself after getting the rest of his armor on. Half asleep and traversing the castle halls isn’t difficult, he could get to the control room of the castle half dying, hell he’s done it before too. 

Unfortunately, he is the last one in the room, right behind Lance, but still last. Allura has her hands on her hips, standing in front of the controls. She isn’t in her armor and that makes Keith sigh. 

“How come it seems that when there isn’t an actual emergency, you paladins can’t seem to find it in you to be quick?”

“It’s like a newly gained sense. I propose we don’t give it a number and instead call it: ‘Allura’s making me lose sleep and therefore I will not be motivated’ Sense.” 

“That’s a good name.” Pidge mumbles, elbowing Keith in the side with a grin before Allura’s sigh snaps their attention back up front. 

“We shouldn’t have to do these fake alarm tests anymore.” Lance whines, already sitting down on the floor. Keith notices from this angle that Lance’s hair is getting a little long, brushing over his neck freely. It’s a shame that once Keith starts staring he can’t stop. 

He’s half-aware that Allura is talking about needing to stay on their toes, waiting for attacks from a recent enemy that, surprise surprise, isn’t the Galra Empire. They’ve spent two months chasing a race of rogue aliens that claim are against the Galra Empire, yet turn around and willingly assist the Galra for money and overlooked crimes. 

Allura says something along the lines of always being ready to fight and Keith can only focus on the glittering black metal on Lance’s finger. His gloves aren’t on. Which is strange, though not entirely unwarranted since they don’t need to be in uniform anymore. Lance is fidgeting, thumb and forefinger twisting the promise ring slowly as he listens to Allura speak. 

When Keith looks over Lance fully, he sees his helmet and gauntlets on the ground next to his outstretched leg. It’s a habit that Keith has noticed has turned up subtly at some point. Lance’s prosthetic aches, he can’t sit the way he used to and so he unconsciously fixes it. It’s similar to how Shiro doesn't take to leaning on his arm much or how he’s always got his arms crossed in order to support it. 

“You’re dismissed.” immediately sets the paladins in motion, zombie-like in retreating into the dim halls back to their rooms. Lance turns to look at Keith and pouts, arms up. 

“I’m not carrying you.” Keith says, like a period on a sentence. 

“Babe. Don’t do this to me.” Lance leans back more, if he keeps going he’s going to fall over. Keith comes forward and scoops the man up, just about half drags him to his feet and lets him go. Lance though stays slung over Keith like a leech, rubbing his face against his boyfriend, making Keith’s skin irritated from his stubble. 

Keith makes a face and tries to push Lance away, grumbling. Lance only chuckles, deep and rich and right into Keith’s ear. It makes him shiver, wary of the hands now on his hips. 

Keith squirms away from Lance, admonishing him about being touchy feely in front of the princess, but Allura is already gone Lance points out. Everyone is gone, really. It doesn’t stop Keith from huffing and telling Lance,  _ still _ . 

“Bedroom then.” Lance says and Keith is weak. They end up back in bed, clothes gone again and Lance pressing kisses on Keith’s shoulders, he’s almost apologetic when he goes over the red marks from his mouth and teeth. 

Keith ends up underneath Lance, grunting and doing his best to not slam up into Lance. He takes it out on Lance’s back, digs his nails into dark hips and gasps against the pillows under him. 

Lance reaches down, hips never slowing down, continuously rocking and gently gliding up and down. He takes Keith’s hand, messily takes his fingers and brushes a kiss over the matching ring Keith wears. 

The metal warms up under Lance’s touch, not unlike the metal of Lance’s prosthesis, pressed onto Keith’s side, warm from skin contact and cold from the bed. It’s frustrating, more so when Lance’s legs draw together and make Keith exhale hard and buck up. 

From there it’s sloppy and uncoordinated but Keith wouldn't have it any other way. Not when Lance is gasping Keith’s name, not when he holds Keith’s hands down onto the bed with trembling fingers, not when Lance cums with Keith’s name on his lips and body thrumming with energy. Keith ends up with the same fate, left breathless and worn out by Lance’s mouth and fingers and loving words. 

It’s great, a good feeling that has nothing after it. It’s drawn out as they lay there, as they fall back asleep, Keith resting on Lance’s chest. It’s good. Lance is good. They’re good. 

* * *

“God, Keith if you kiss me one more time I swear-”

“You’re going to complain about your husband kissing you?”

“I wouldn’t if it was one time after, ‘You may now kiss the bride’ but it’s hundreds of times after ‘I now pronounce you husband and husband. You may kiss the husband.’”

Keith snorts, gets another kiss on Lance’s mouth halfway into his explanation and smiles when Lance tries to jerk his head away.

“Let me watch the movie, _ god _ .” Lance cries, exasperated and even now, at 28 he can sound like a child. 

“ _ I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry _ is a dumb movie, I don’t want to watch it anymore. It’s an ancient movie that should be forgotten.” 

Keith tries to swoop in and kiss Lance again, only to get a pillow in the face for his efforts. He tries to wrestle it away, ignoring Lance’s complaints about ‘what’s the point in pirating a movie in space if we aren’t even going to finish it!’. 

Lance suddenly screeches, voice cracking and prosthetic flickering with a glow and Keith chuckles. He doesn’t relent, fingers staying against Lance’s ribs. The holographic tablet goes clattering against the floor and Keith takes the opportunity to sit on top of Lance, grinning triumphantly. 

Lance doesn’t look amused, lying there among the blanket fort and sulking. Keith leans down, has to flick his hair over his shoulder to lean down into Lance’s space, and hums when Lance finally kisses him back. It’s here, gentle light from fake christmas lights illuminating Lance’s face, and Chuck and Larry screaming from the floor, that Keith blurts “we should get married”.

The two exchange wide looks, Lance tears up and Keith blushes harder than he thought he could. The resulting yelling is heard down the halls, it attracts attention, and eventually everyone is yelling about the proposal. It’s absolutely chaotic, but honestly, Keith wouldn’t change a damn thing. Well….maybe he’d hurl the movie out the airlock, but that can be saved for another day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted them to get married because I'm a fucking sAP. And thus it happened.  
> A/N: Kay so, clarification: They start dating, at some point they exchange promise rings that they buy at an alien planet, they remain dating marriage has not even occured in their minds when they have their promise rings (theyre young and still have that mentality of marriage when everything is calmer), and then years later Keith proposed very unconventionally, they get engaged and the rings have new meanings. Two years after they finally get married and have a ceremony of sorts. (Ngl i've been thinking so much about this that I may or may not make another chapter for yall lmao)


End file.
